There’s always thyme for a good Italian meal so believes sous chef Alejandro Martinez.He’s been cooking up pasta and salad dishes at Bacci at the Fairmont Southampton for the past two years and recently created a herb garden on the property fresh thyme, basil, sage and oregano are now all at hand.The herbs have taken some of the restaurant’s beloved dishes to a whole new level, Mr Martinez said.“Herbs are extremely important to Italian food. Those four herbs are the most common used in the kitchen, besides rosemary which we have all around the property.“I have also found wild fennel in the golf course and these herbs are applied to dishes in different ways.”The fresh basil is used in appetisers like bruschetta and caprese salad and is also the key ingredient for the in-house pesto sauce. Basil is used in all of the pasta dishes, particularly the ravioli, Mr Martinez said.The chef has been cooking for nearly 20 years, having previously worked in Argentina, Italy and France.During his time on the Mediterranean, he was inspired to go for walks in the countryside where he would gather fresh herbs for his dishes.“I used to do that every day, go outside and get my herbs and get them ready for service. So I decided to buy some books and research about herbs that was before Wikipedia.”The herb garden at Bacci was started at the beginning of this year.The chef said: “I asked to have the herbs because it’s important for me.“Now I have these ten minutes by myself to relax a little bit and [gather] the herbs and get the fresh smells [before I start cooking]. But I also get the kind of quality I want to give the dishes.”Herbs are prominent in Bacci’s saltimbocca a thinly pounded veal, where the meat is filleted and filled with prosciutto, provolone cheese and fresh sage. The roasted potatoes are also coated with the chef’s special blend of oregano, sage, thyme and rosemary.Mr Martinez said: “We use the rosemary to [create] the flavoured oils. We have a small trio that guests get when they arrive to the restaurant with roasted garlic and a flavoured oil that changes every day, and a chickpea purée.”Though similar to hummus, the purée has more of an olive oil flavour than lemon or garlic.Another dish that showcases the fresh herb flavours is the tagliata di manzo, a grilled beef striploin dish. It comes with sautéed mushrooms, which are also seasoned with thyme, and fresh arugula and cherry tomatoes, seasoned with garlic and oregano.Each herb has completely different flavours and special aromas; basil is usually more sweet, while thyme and oregano have an earthy flavour.“There are herbs that are more resistant to being cooked and some that have to be added close to the end because their essential oils are so volatile, so when they get put in the heat for a long time period they just disappear, it’s like you never put them in,” he explained.“It’s challenging cooking with herbs because of the freshness, first of all. If you get herbs that are drying out or dying, all the seasoning of the herbs is basically done,” he said.Mr Martinez said the best way to store fresh herbs is to rinse them, then put them into plastic bags with a damp paper towel covering it. This will keep some moisture in, but not too much, he said.The herbs can then be stored up to three days before they start to dry up.He said the important part of working with herbs is not to be too heavy-handed. “The excess of herbs in any way transfers to the dish in bitterness so it’s important not to put too much.”Chefs usually learn about how to flavour foods through trial and error. “You have to fall to get up,” he explained.Perhaps the best dish to showcase Bacci’s fresh herbs is the spinach salad, said Mr Martinez. Thyme is used to season the roasted beets, while wild fennel is sprinkled in the goat cheese mix.“With the salad you can taste all the herbs even at just one bite and you can taste the earthiness. When you put all [the ingredients] in your mouth it’s a combination of freshness.”Mr Martinez’s signature dish at the restaurant is his five-cheese ravioli marscapone, provolone, asiago, grana padano and pecorino cheeses are included.He said: “I brought it into Bacci and the fun part about the ravioli is when you put it in your mouth and bite it’s an explosion. It becomes a liquid and all the cheeses melt with the marscapone.”Another show-stopping dish is the fusilli pasta with artichokes, pancetta, cherry tomatoes and grana padano cheese shavings.“It’s kind of earthy like a fall kind of dish, but so nice to have all these flavours combining together with pancetta and artichokes. They have all this bitterness, but then you get the sweetness from the tomatoes. It’s very nice.”Mr Martinez said herbs could even be used in desserts. In other restaurants he’s worked in, ingredients like thyme were used to complement the flavours in strawberries and rosemary and lemon were used in a sorbet.He said fresh ingredients from the herb garden were important to the success of the restaurant. “Mediterranean cuisine is full of herbs and fresh flavours and you can see and feel the difference when you use fresh herbs versus dried herbs and it’s something I would never trade for anything.“It’s something very, very important.”