At Montage, one of California’s most esteemed resorts, dinner preparations have begun inside Studio, a restaurant that’s about as lavish as it gets. Amid the hum of compression units and exhaust fans, men and women in kitchen whites scurry about — flinging pots and pans, chopping veggies, slamming freezer doors — in a workplace where a premium is placed on using the most flavorful and unadulterated ingredients that can be found.

Beside a chest-high wire shelf, executive chef James Boyce palms a green bottle of Italian olive oil, pointing to the spot on the label that signifies its organic origins. From a white cardboard box he plucks a peach procured from a local organic farm. The fruit is dotted with several blemishes, but for Boyce that’s not a bad thing. “You won’t see fruit like this in the grocery store,” he points out, “but when it comes to flavor, there’s simply no comparison.” As a member of his staff passes by with a plate of yellow squash, he stops her and drives the point home. “See how these aren’t all uniform in shape and size? Nothing in here comes out of a hothouse. You’re eating the freshest of ingredients — what’s ripe right now. Not something that’s been in cold storage for the last six months.”

Entering the walk-in cooler, he picks up a carton of free-range organic eggs. “Normally, restaurants don’t buy these by the dozen, but….” And that’s when he stops. His eyes fix upon a translucent white plastic vessel: top shelf, far right. He tries to continue, but he’s obviously been caught by surprise. He glares at what appears to be a jug of orange juice — but this O.J. is clearly a mass-marketed, store-bought product. It’s as blatantly out of place here as a filet mignon in a vegan’s freezer.

Boyce pulls the offending object from the shelf and carries it with him. “This,” he says casually, “isn’t used for cooking.” He puts it on display in the middle of the kitchen. Though I don’t see any reprimand for the oversight, I’m guessing there’s one coming. After all, it took this James Beard nominee an entire year to rid his kitchen of food items like this, allowing him to declare it nearly 100 percent organic. He cooks only with filtered water, and even the cleaning products are organic. “There are a few ingredients I can’t verify,” he says, pulling a canister of black pepper from a shelf. “With stuff like this, I just don’t know. But I estimate I’m now at about 98 percent.”

This au naturel makeover, which involves examining longstanding processes and investigating the source of even the most prosaic of food items, wasn’t the sort of thing taught at culinary schools two decades ago. “Very little time was devoted to nutrition back then,” he recalls. But now, according to Boyce and others, organic is considered the future of fine food, if not the present reality. “Just five years ago,” he contends, “this kitchen would not have been possible.” The number of organic farms, he confirms, has grown dramatically. And demand? It’s never been greater, especially in California. In fact, judging from everything I see around me, “organic” has practically become the state motto.

One needn’t look hard these days to find major hotel brands touting the virtues of their organic food offerings: the organic breakfast served at Omni Hotels, the organic wines offered by Fairmont, the line of organic foods and beverages that will be offered by Hyatt’s new hotel brand, Andaz. Even smaller luxury hotels are offering more earthy alternatives to their guests; for example, the WaterColor Inn in Florida has a tour that involves gathering what you’ll eat from the sea (oyster, crabs) and the land (honey).

But the trend toward so-called organic food is not entirely new: Some 40 years ago, legions of Americans started eating natural — and often homegrown — food as part of the “back to nature” segment of ’60s counterculture. Now, some of the biggest proponents of the organic movement are in the mainstream. When you say “organic” today, you no longer think of gastronomic radicals, starving avant-garde chefs with eateries on the shady sides of towns, or off-the-grid hippie farmers. To the contrary, deep-pocketed luxury hotels and top-shelf restaurants out to wow their customers are among the main forces moving this lifestyle front and center in the marketplace. “The organic movement is going to get bigger,” says David Myers, executive chef at L.A.’s Sona Restaurant, which was recently recognized by National Geographic as one of the best “special restaurants” in the world. And it comes as no surprise that California has long been this movement’s epicenter.

During my visit to the Los Angeles area, I notice that the word “organic” has become as commonplace as wetsuit-clad surfers making daily pilgrimages to the shore. On the streets of Manhattan Beach, just outside of L.A. proper, I pass an organic dry cleaner. While strolling the boutiques in Venice, I come across Topo Ranch, boasting a line of organic cotton clothing. In the neighborhood of Los Feliz is Undesigned, where you’ll find cocktail dresses made of organic material. At Montage in Laguna Beach, I wash my hair with organic shampoo from France, and my wife gets an organic spa treatment. The word blares from radios, and it’s scattered across billboard ads. Out here, a clean-burning lifestyle is all the rage — and organic food is the premier offering.

At Sona Restaurant, where letters of praise from most every celebrity chef you’ve heard of are hanging on the walls, 90 percent of the vegetables used are organic. At the Avalon Hotel in Beverly Hills, organic berries and raw bee pollen are used to make the smoothies, while the frittata is made with organic egg whites, heirloom tomatoes, and artisan goat cheese from Sonoma. At the Peninsula Beverly Hills, I’m served diver scallops and organic sweet corn with fennel chowder poured at the table. “The upper echelons of the culinary field are champions of this movement, and it will only continue to expand,” executive chef Sean Hardy tells me. “As the demand grows and there is more supply, the cost will go down — but it will always be a lot easier for us in California because we have the best products close at hand.”

Few states are able to boast of “farm-fresh ingredients” the way California can. It’s the most agriculturally productive state in the country — one-third of its land is covered by farms and ranches (about 76,500) and there are nearly 1,700 different types of soil. Lemons, mushrooms, avocados, and squash can be grown here throughout the year, and the state is the nation’s sole producer of artichokes, figs, almonds, pomegranates, and olives. What’s more, over 1,300 farms and businesses are now recognized by the California Certified Organic Farmers trade association. Not only are words like free-range and pesticide-free commonplace on menus, but the names of farms themselves — Chino, Harry’s Berries — are often dropped as a way to convey a certain culinary cachet. Out here, the notion of an organic meal goes considerably further than what you might get at, say, a chain hotel in the Midwest.

It’s midday Saturday when we arrive at the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market in downtown. Hipsters, soccer moms, and retirees are picking through great mounds of vegetables, fruits, and other goodies. I see fava beans, cherries, apples, blood oranges, hydroponic tomatoes, and artisan cheeses. Signs can be seen everywhere, all sounding the same message: organic, organic, organic. The year-round market boasts that over 60 percent of its vendors are organic, making it one of the largest concentrations of organic farmers in the state.

But while the crowd seems decidedly “normal,” it’s still hard for me to consider the farmers selling these goods as full-fledged members of the retail establishment. As I adjust the collar on my organic cotton shirt after buying baskets of organic strawberries, blackberries, and carrots to snack on, I finally decide that the farmers here are just in the right place at the right time, a small group of dogmatic businesspeople taking part in a time-honored California pastime: riding a wave.

The Meaning Behind the Mantra
When you see the green-and-white “USDA Organic” label on a product, it has a specific meaning: The item is “produced by farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations. Organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones.” As for produce, this means most conventional pesticides are out, no fertilizers with synthetic ingredients are used, and bioengineering is verboten.

The USDA has yet to declare that organic items are more nutritious or safer than the rest. That, it seems, is a conclusion one must draw independently — and many Americans already have. According to a 2005 food-trend survey performed by Whole Foods, nearly two-thirds of Americans have tried organic food and a quarter of them eat organic foods several times per month.

WHERE TO STAY
Montage
Laguna Beach
866.271.6953
montagelagunabeach.com

WHERE TO EAT
Sona Restaurant
West Hollywood
310.659.7708
sonarestaurant.com

Studio
Laguna Beach
866.271.6953
studiolagunabeach.com

The Belvedere
The Peninsula
Beverly Hills
800.462.7899
beverlyhills.peninsula.com

WHERE TO SHOP
Topo Ranch
Venice
310.450.2153
toporanch.com

Undesigned by Carol Young
Los Angeles
323.663.0088
undesigned.com

ORGANIC SPA
rA Organic Spa
Burbank
818.848.4772
raorganicspa.com

FARMERS’ MARKET
Santa Monica Farmers’ Market
Santa Monica
smgov.net/farmers_market

Photography by Christopher Percy Collier

Christopher Percy Collier is a writer and photographer. His work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler and Travel + Leisure.