The Impact Review: Zero Waste Gastronomy at Silo

“To start, we have Pimientos de Padrón, kissed on the grill, with a cuttlefish garum,” the waiter informs us as he places down a delicate bowl of charred peppers that, he tells us, are at the end of their season between May and October. And garum? The pure umami product of fermenting cuttlefish, a process that takes place right here at Silo in London’s Hackney Wick. We curiously pick them up by their stalk, placing them into our mouths in one. Instantaneously, Molly and I exchange a glance of pure disbelief at the flavour. Wow. 

Silo is the epitome of fine dining; it’s sophisticated, unique. The vast warehouse space is consciously scattered with round tables, which are, in fact, made from waste medical plastic; the lighting is dim, an ambient hue made possible by the use of a variety of tasteful light fixtures, some are made from mycelium and others from used glass bottles which are ground down and reformed by Silo’s in-house potter. Sitting at the bar, we have front row seats to the kitchen where a team of concentrated chefs cohesively dance to Donnie Emerson’s Baby B Joe as they intermittently hum “Yes, Chef.”

Silo in its London iteration was set up in 2019 by Doug McMaster. Before that, it was based in Brighton. The concept behind which was fathomed in Australia by Joost Bakker, Doug tells me, refusing to take any responsibility for the idea. McMaster is humble. Too humble, perhaps, if we’re to consider the fact that he’s built this place up from the ground. Not literally, in line with the zero waste philosophy, it was a disused warehouse space in its past life. 

The mullet-donning chef from Sheffield began his culinary career as a result of pure disdain for institutionalisation (and subsequently school), but it was not long before he realised how institutionalised the world of gastronomy was too. “It felt wrong,” he tells me, “it oppressed my creativity.” I confer. 

So, Silo then? The waste free fine dining experience where the menu consists of seasonal and invasive species, those of which that must be imported are imported by pirate ship (yes, by pirate ship; a deal that came to be after a Rum or three on a ship in Copenhagen, as one does); the 100% recycled and 100% recyclable bar is made by Smile Plastic, the floor from recycled bottles, the dining room table from recycled toiletries and chopping boards are made from… well, disused chopping boards; the wine bottles once containing natural and organic wines continue their life with the in-house potter; and food waste is composted or fermented. 

“Nature doesn’t have a bin,” Doug says. “We’re trying to think what nature might want if it was a person.” Picking up a small multi-coloured plastic cube, Doug divulges: “We can’t change the world with the same mindset that we created it. There’s a quote by Desmond Tutu that I find rings true: ‘There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.’” The plastic cube, by the way, namely ‘The Tesseract’ is all the plastic waste generated by Silo over the last few years, crushed down into one tiny amalgamation of plastic which Doug is quite proud of. 

Next, we’ve got a wild rabbit dumpling, braised chard cooked in corked wine, a Hen of the Woods mushroom in glazed shiitake miso and celeriac, every part of the celeriac from the stem to the leaf – all accompanied by a half pint of Japanese Knotweed beer and the soothing jazz of Miles Davis. It’s sexy, really sexy. And, that’s exactly what Doug is trying to do: make zero waste sexy. 

After a delightful dining experience that made zero waste gastronomy look easy and taste amazing, Rose sits down with Doug to unpick the intricacies of Silo over a glass of natural wine. 

Rose Dodd: Doug, this is a huge project and quite something to achieve. At what point did you decide that you wanted, or perhaps needed, to make this happen?

Doug McMaster: I always had the Hollywood dream of opening a restaurant, but I found the industry sometimes to be really toxic and wanted to do something about it. Lots of people were having a tough time in the workplace, doing crazy hour shifts in underground kitchens and being constantly bullied. Zero waste is just one small part of the Silo story. What I really wanted to do was reimagine the restaurant space and create a different atmosphere to other fine dining kitchens. Silo is all about compassion, intelligence and authenticity, but also our belief in ‘not fucking the planet’ and using the kitchen as an opportunity to apply ourselves in a way that makes the world a little bit better. It’s a ‘no bullshit’ space for positive creativity.

RD: Tell me about the research that has gone into transforming Silo from an idea into a practising philosophy.

DM: Silo Melbourne was the very first conception of the idea in 2012. It was a year-long pop up project by Joost Bakker, a visionary with a zero waste premonition who could see the future. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and was in complete awe of his work. Joost put me in the Silo café and told me that all the food I was going to use would be from a farm, not to waste anything in the kitchen, and to compost whatever couldn’t be repurposed. I had to figure it all out and use that year as a testing ground. It was an unheard of opportunity where I had all the techy zero waste equipment at my fingertips and the luxury of time on my side. I’d always had a good understanding of the macro-philosophical overview of what the zero waste concept meant, and had several key revelations during that year that have come to define Silo now. 

RD: In the competitive world of gastronomy, it can’t have been an easy ride.

Humankind has designed waste into this world so it’s now our responsibility to design it out. That said, Silo as a restaurant also needs to survive in the fiercely competitive world of gastronomy, so we needed to offer something that was delicious whilst also having these sustainability credentials that we were becoming known for. Quality has always been paramount to me, and with a pedigree of working in some of the world’s best restaurants, I’ve made it my mission to achieve excellence in a zero waste space. 

RD: I first came across Silo through a video on Instagram that showed your in-house potter turning finished wine bottles into crockery. This is just one example of some of the circular practices you’re engaging with at Silo.

DM: Our raw glass project is one of the most important things we do because it’s pretty radical and original. We’re taking a single-use material and accepting responsibility for it by turning it into something we need. 

RD: Then, of course, you have the fermentation process.

DM: In terms of dining waste, fermentation is our way of turning scraps into gold. It’s the key to the world of upcycling and using up surplus food waste that would otherwise be composted. 

RD: What’s been the hardest waste stream to overcome?

DM: Time! Wasted time getting things wrong. It’s all part of the process but time is one of our biggest challenges. 

RD: I’ve been waitressing since I was sixteen years old and I’ve noticed the door between the kitchen and the floor makes for a vast lack of transparency and subsequently, some laziness.

DM: A lack of transparency in kitchens means that nothing ever gets done because restaurants can get away with so much. It’s basically gross negligence on their part. 

RD: Doug, you do a lot of teaching too. Talk to me about this.

DM: The chronological order of change for making a better future first begins with awareness. No one will ever change if they don’t understand what needs to be changed. We’re all born into a world with a bin so we subscribe to the idea that it’s a necessity and don’t give any thought or understanding to the negative impacts of this. So, first you need to make people aware of an issue, and once they’re aware they become educated. In the post-internet era, information is shared so widely that awareness of bigger issues is much better than it previously used to be. That said, generationally in gastronomy there’s an enormous amount of truth to the saying: ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ with many restaurants firmly set in their ways. I really want to be a leader in this movement and there’s so much appetite for change that I want to help educate people on this issue. What I hope to do is to lay the groundwork for the next generation to build on and continue growing this vision. 

RD: Appetite for change, indeed. Now, on the subject of appetite, your menu consists of seasonal ingredients and invasive species. Why is using invasive species a good idea?

DM: We’ve had such an astonishing response to this subject, one that I didn’t foresee when we began on the invasive species journey. I thought people would find the concept too challenging and not accessible enough because it’s a topic on the edge of sustainability, but it’s been such a hit. Creatively it was a huge breath of fresh air, allowing us to dabble in environmentalism through the intersection of zero waste and invasive species. These are species of plants or creatures that are overpopulated to the point that they’re damaging our ecosystems. We can either let them go to waste or we can help manage their populations by eating them. I vote we eat them. 

RD: Me too. You mentioned in a past interview that it’s 99.9% waste free, what happens to the remaining 0.01% that is impossible to avoid?

DM: It’s not impossible to avoid the 0.01% waste but there’s only so much we can do. Mostly, that small percentage reflects waste from people’s plates. There’s not ever a huge amount because we hope that our dishes are delicious enough that people want to polish them off, and equally we are very precise in the way we curate a dish and proportion it to make sure they’re the right size. But as you can imagine, it would be a step too far to repurposing food from the plates people eat from! The other thing we’re yet to quite conquer is egg shells. We could crush them into a calcium powder but it’s one of the very, very few things we don’t quite have capacity for. 

RD: Finally, there is a huge reluctance to transition to circular/zero waste models across many industries. This is mostly because of habit and because of fear of cost. Silo demonstrates it’s possible. How would you explain its feasibility?

DM: Clever design is the way of making zero waste models possible. In the restaurant industry, zero waste operations are an economic proposition. In most restaurants, very loosely you can break down costs into 30% fixed costs, 30% food costs, 30% staff costs and 10% profit. Silo operates differently by having higher staff costs but with food costs that are SO much lower to the point that they often work to a net positive. Food waste is profit waste. When other industries cotton on to the idea that zero waste design is economically advantageous, that will be a real moment of change.