Trash Talk
Listen now
Description
Could you run a restaurant without a bin? That was the question that an environmental activist asked chef Douglas McMaster back in 2011 — and he's been trying to answer it ever since. Today, he's the chef-patron at restaurant Silo — the world's first zero-waste restaurant. Located in London, Silo was born out of a desire to create a sustainable restaurant that serves food made from scratch, using produce sourced from ethical growers — without generating any waste. Silo is now a big source of inspiration to many other restaurateurs — including Lara Espirito Santo, who launched Lisbon's first zero-waste restaurant, SEM, with her partner George McLeod in 2021. Episode 9 is all about a cutting-edge culinary idea that’s sweeping the world. To understand why, we enjoyed some trash-talking with both Douglas and Lara — and found out what running a zero-waste restaurant involves, why it boosts not just their creativity but their bottom line, and what kind of waste every single restaurant could stop producing today.
More Episodes
Published 08/29/22
From Instagram to Netflix, there’s no shortage of  content celebrating the creative side of the culinary world. Yet there’s precious little coverage of the dark side of the hospitality industry and, in particular, the mental health issues that many restaurant workers face. In fact, from burnout...
Published 08/29/22
Our guest this month has been described as “hospitality personified”. Sam Ward is the managing director of the Umbel Restaurant Group, a collection of restaurants launched by chef Simon Rogan, who’s considered one of the pioneers of the ‘farm-to-fork’ movement in the UK. The group’s holdings...
Published 07/25/22