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In Brighton, McMaster says he reached a point where he stopped progressing, partly down to what he calls fundamental flaws in the business. But I knew I always wanted to come to London and I can’t open a second restaurant, I can only move it. It was a warehouse space, I could get produce from farms 20 miles away and Brighton had quirky people and a big vegan and organic movement. But in London it felt like we were trying to go through a locked door and then we could skip down and there would be an open door, that’s what Brighton was. “I love London, it is still my favourite city in the world.
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Brighton’s five-year lease had come to an end and McMaster says he had always intended to return to the capital, where he spent his formative years working at St John Bread and Wine. There was not one major reason, it turns out, but rather that the timing was right.
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In the world and then find out it is made of waste.” Think is one of the most beautiful dining rooms Brighton was the original first choice, so why the change now? "I want people to walk into what they What’s more, the impending move to London marks a new stage in Silo’s evolution where he can build significantly on what has gone before.īut why London and why now? With Brighton’s green credentials and its high vegan population, McMaster had found a captive audience in the eco-minded south coast dwellers. If the five years at Brighton were at times punishing, they were also deeply formative and, after much trial, error and frustration the chef has now created a zero-waste system that is proven to work. This is because McMaster is now in a good place. This isn’t the chef, whose restaurant manager once sent a group email about saying he needed psychological help for his almost maniacal approach to his project (as documented in the book), I was expecting. Affable, eloquent and instantly likeable, he admits he’s more comfortable when in conversation than having to speak about himself to a journalist, immediately asking his own questions before the interview begins. Dressed in dark jeans and a grey t-shirt teamed with what look like brown suede Birkenstocks and with shaggy hair and a beard, he certainly has the look of an eco-warrior – he’s more Swampy than swanky – but he’s not the tub-thumping anarchist anyone reading his book might assume him to be. We are outside because McMaster says he’s more comfortable in the fresh air (he tries to have as many meetings as possible outside). Later this month, Silo Hackney will open upstairs in The White Building following owner, Crate, having raised almost £1m in crowdfunding – double the original target – to not only improve its canal-side brewery and pizzeria but also open an entirely new project with the chef. From south coast to the Big SmokeĪlmost exactly five years on from throwing open the doors to Silo Brighton and the 32-year-old chef from Sheffield sits outside Crate Brewery in Hackney in the drizzle on the cusp of opening Silo’s second coming. The pursuit of a zero-waste restaurant proved noble, but also chaotic and brutal. In his book Silo, The Zero Waste Blueprint, there are numerous tales of chaos, of the restaurant nearly burning down, of McMaster sleeping on the restaurant floor and not leaving the premises for weeks on end. It was brave, uncompromising – diners were greeted with a large compost machine as a bold statement of intent – and by his own account incredibly difficult to do, often overwhelmingly so. At Silo in Brighton, which he launched in 2014 and closed in June this year, McMaster has (in)famously strived to create and run a restaurant that tackles head on the thorny issue of the vast amount of waste generated in the world of hospitality. Those who know of McMaster, who is leading a one-man crusade against waste in restaurants, will be familiar with this approach. In Silo’s ‘closed loop’ system there is no such thing as a by-product, just another product.
MACMASTER CHOICE MEATS FREE
Ingredients are delivered free of disposable packaging food is cooked, served and eaten with any absolutely necessary leftovers turned into either green or brown compost glass wine bottles are reduced to powder and turned into ‘porcelain’.
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Like its previous incarnation in Brighton, which closed earlier this year after half a decade to make way for the new project, nothing in Silo is thrown away.Īnd McMaster means nothing. This might appear a minor observation, but from this seemingly simple premise has grown the UK’s – if not the world’s – first zero-waste restaurant. There will be no bin in Douglas McMaster’s new restaurant, Silo, when it opens in Hackney in November.