Douglas McMaster interview: ‘A different future is possible’

There are many sustainable restaurants in London doing their bit to be kinder to the planet, whether that’s through responsible sourcing or low-waste cooking. But very few, if any, can confidently call themselves zero-waste. It’s been a decade since Douglas McMaster opened his zero-waste restaurant Silo and his concept is still an exception to the rule, proving that restaurants can survive, and indeed thrive, without implicating the planet. Still the question remains: if one restaurant can do it, why can’t others?

McMaster has dedicated his career to learning about the intricacies of running a zero-waste restaurant, working tirelessly to ensure it remains viable and making myriad mistakes along the way so that others don’t have to.

'A different future is possible’, he explains. ‘This is not an adjustment of another restaurant - this is a whole other restaurant. This is literally born from an entirely different world view, an entirely different system.’

One might assume that McMaster is a lifelong eco-warrior, but Silo was born, in many ways, out of a moment of desperation. 13 years ago, the chef was working in a ‘very aggressive kitchen’ in Sydney, experiencing burnout and questioning whether life as a chef was the right path for him. It was only by chance that he met an artist called Joost Bakker who challenged him to open a restaurant without a bin. Most people might laugh at an idea like that and walk away without giving it a second thought, but Joost was a beacon of light during a very dark period of the chef’s life.

'I feel like you could have put a lot of things in front of me then that I would have grabbed onto because I was suffocating from the toxic cesspit that was that kitchen’, he grimaces.

‘I don't ever want this to be some elite club. I don't ever want it to be preachy. I share everything’

It wasn’t the sustainable element that attracted McMaster to the idea either – his fascination with sustainability was yet to come. Instead, the chef was drawn to the artist’s almost childlike sense of awe and possibility, in his ability to think about the world in new and exciting ways. It was this creative flair that really resonated with the chef and gave him the mojo he needed to quit his job. ‘If I had a brand, it wouldn't be zero waste or fine dining, it would be creativity. That's the bit I thrive off.’

‘It was less about the environment and more about the creative expression. If you're going to get through this life and enjoy it and find fulfilment, I feel like you've got to find something that you can dig your teeth into.’

So he said ‘yes’ to the no bin thing, and in 2011 opened Silo as a pop-up in Australia. In 2014, he moved the concept to permanent grounds in Brighton, and in 2019 migrated the restaurant to London.

A decade of zero-waste cooking

Over the best part of a decade, McMaster and his team have poured every ounce of energy they have into fine tuning Silo’s closed-loop system, ensuring nothing goes to waste without compromising on the restaurant's fine dining experience as a whole. We talk at great length about some of the game-changing policies the restaurant has implemented to reduce its impact over the years, from rethinking the design of the menu to eradicating cling film, to clever details like taking orders on wipeable kitchen tiles rather than paper. Every element of the business has been considered, tweaked and refined so that nothing is wasted. Not one thing. Naturally it would be impossible for any restaurant to make all those changes at once, so we ask McMaster what he'd recommend above all else to restaurants that want to be more sustainable.

‘The most important thing we can all do – at home, chefs, everyone - is appreciate that industrial agriculture is killing the planet. Forget plastic waste, forget road miles, forget locality. That comes after food coming from a good farming system.’

A sustainable food system starts with where and how we source our food. In a perfect world we’d all buy direct from farmers: it reduces plastic and pollution because food is no longer passed through multiple points on the supply chain, and on an even simpler level, it supports good agriculture and farmers with sustainable principles.

‘We can't be eating food from these industrial monocultures anymore. It's totally irresponsible. The food doesn't taste as good. It's damning nature. It's damning human civilisation. So just stop doing it, you know, stop supporting it.’

But McMaster isn’t under the illusion that buying produce direct from farmers and producers is achievable for everyone, nor is it easy to go zero waste at home. Cost is a major reason why most businesses and the public can’t justify sourcing from organic farms, or doing their weekly shop at a farmer’s market, and the systems in place mean that plastic is part and parcel of the supply chain.

Major, systematic change might not be a reality any time soon, but there are small, creative things restaurants and home cooks can do to minimise food waste. Silo, for example, might spend a bit more on a rib of beef, but none of that ends up in the bin. The team will strip the fat then render that down into a sauce, and trim the edges for mince which will make its way back onto the menu as a garum (a fermented sauce).

Harnessing the power of fermentation now plays a critical role at Silo and it’s all down to one very powerful ingredient – koji - a cultivated fungus that's used to aid fermentation. Silo in its pre-koji era composted up to 20% of its food. Now, it composts just 1% of food waste – everything else is re-used and reimagined into new edible products that get better with time. ‘We've got a cuttlefish garum that I made in 2019 and it’s still on the menu’, he laughs. ‘It’s like pouring a fine wine.’

This is one of the chef's greatest discoveries: that a zero waste future relies on restaurants harnessing the power of fermentation to turn food waste into something new and, ultimately, delicious. 

The team now uses koji to make misos, garums and pretty much anything else that can be transformed into a ferment. ‘It's so much more maximal in the way we can turn everything into something’, explains McMaster.

Good chefs don’t gatekeep

There’s a temptation amongst great innovators to keep their discoveries to themselves. After all, behind every success lies hours of hard work, grit, experimentation and failure, so parting with hard-earned secrets is like offering others a cheat code. But McMaster considers it his responsibility to share everything he’s learned with the world.

‘I don't ever want this to be some elite club. I don't ever want it to be preachy. I share everything’, he says. ‘I want to communicate these contemporary ideas in ways that people can use.' His advice to restaurants is realistic too. The chef is very honest about the struggles he's experienced with Silo, and describes moments over the years that pushed him to the brink of insanity, but he's made it work despite the odds.

‘I don't want people to think that you need money to do what we do. Silo’s never had an investor, and if a 26-year-old, neurodivergent school dropout with no team and no investment can do this, then everyone can.’

It’s not just sustainability within the restaurant world that McMaster feels responsible for. He launched the Zero Waste Cookery School on Instagram during Covid to share his knowledge with foodies at home, from cooking tips to recipes to informative videos about regenerative farming. ‘I want to continue to demonstrate how everyone else can take little pieces of the puzzle in ways that will benefit them in their own kitchens and their own lives.’ He also authored the book Silo: The Zero Waste Blueprint, which explains the vision behind Silo and what restaurants should be doing to help de-industrialise our food system.

More recently he's launched the Fermentation Factory, a project which aims to make fresh koji accessible to local businesses and allow chefs, brewers, bakers and baristas to make their own ferments in house. It will help tackle food waste in the capital while allowing Silo to connect with local restaurants, but it’s also very creative – a win-win for the chef.

It begs the question: is a zero-waste future really possible? '10 years ago, I assumed there would be this trigger of change and that hasn't happened,' he admits. 'There are a small handful of restaurants dabbling in the arts of zero waste, but it's novelty at best. So that doesn't leave my cup full to be honest.'

But all major change must start somewhere, and McMaster understands his role as both an innovator and educator in the world of sustainable cooking. 'I don't feel gloomy about it. All I would like to continue to do is what I perceive as responsible behaviour in a way which is inclusive.' 

Catch up on all our latest interviews, including James Lowe (Lyle's), Cal Byerley and Ian Waller (Pine) and Adriana Cavita (Cavita).