Chef Douglas McMaster has just announced that his groundbreaking zero-waste restaurant, Silo, in Hackney Wick, will close on December 20 after 11 years. The “restaurant without a bin” first opened in Brighton in 2014. It moved to its current canalside London site – in the White Building, above the Crate Brewery taproom – in 2019, after crowdfunding almost £1 million.
From the start, McMaster has strived to create a closed loop of production, where nothing is wasted, and to show how elevated sustainable dining can be. Every dish on the set menu (projected onto the wall to save on paper) comes to the table with an explanation of the involved processes that have gone into making it. The day-old sourdough bread shows up in multiple incarnations throughout the meal alongside a series of ferments and surprising combinations like potato skin ice-cream. And it isn’t just the food that’s eco-minded: the glass lamps are made from old wine bottles and the plates from recycled food packaging.
McMaster announced the closure on Instagram, explaining that Silo was proof that “circular thinking can survive in the heart of capitalism, even if it’s like watching a fish trying to climb a tree”.
“We’ve tried so hard to do everything right – everything from material waste to supporting only regenerative farmers to collaborating in ways that empower different communities,” he said in the reel. “We’ve trained a lot of people, we’ve innovated really, really hard. We don’t have a general waste bin, we maximise 99 per cent of the produce from these incredible farmers. And it feels like this exhibition is complete.”
Alongside the restaurant, his company Silo Systems has been designing supply chains, fermentation programs and regenerative models across the world. This has already resulted in Baldío, a zero-waste restaurant in Mexico City, and the company is now developing a project in Bali. “These are the next chapters in shaping the future of food,” McMaster says. “And we’re not disappearing. By closing the doors of Silo London, we open the way for a Silo world tour – a series of collaborations and pop-ups that will bring our zero-waste philosophy to new cities and communities around the world.
“It’s sad, but it’s also a miracle. I feel enormously happy when I think about how this shouldn’t have existed.” Bookings are now open for the last months of service at Silo.
Silo will close on December 20.
