Chef and restaurateur Doug McMaster has blazed a trail for the zero-waste movement. His restaurant, Silo, has an innovative and inspiring approach to food, farming and fermentation
He may not be a household name – yet – but Doug McMaster has been instrumental in getting across the zero-waste message, inspiring esteemed chefs such as Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York State and Christian Puglisi of Relæ in Copenhagen.
Disrupting restaurant norms is McMaster’s stock in trade. And the food? Dishes such as shiitake mushrooms with dumplings and mustard taste as good as they sound – and they look beautiful, too.
Back in 2012, Doug, who’s worked at St John and The Fat Duck, was challenged to run a pop-up restaurant without a bin. While making shortbread, he realised he’d need to source the raw, unpackaged ingredients directly from farmers. “It was the most delicious shortbread I’ve ever eaten,” says Doug. Two years later, he opened Silo in Brighton with the same zero-waste ethos.
The restaurant, which moved to Hackney in east London in 2019, works directly with its suppliers. Food is delivered in glass or paper packaging and the furniture is made from recycled materials. This sourcing method makes financial as well as environmental sense. Milk, bought by the pail, is used to churn butter and make yogurt – cheaper than buying the finished products. Flour is milled on-site and bread baked in-house. The daily menu is projected onto the wall (no paper) and changes are made in real time as ingredients run out. “It’s an evolving, breathing, living menu,” Doug explains.
This feature appeared in Delicious Magazine, issue February 2020.
Laura Day 