‘It’s like a fish climbing a tree’: Silo restaurant to close

Doug McMaster is to close his restaurant Silo in London’s Hackney at the end of the year.

Announcing his decision, the chef said “this exhibition is complete” and that the last service for what was dubbed the world’s first zero-waste restaurant would be 20 December.

Silo originally opened in Brighton in 2014 and moved to London five years later after McMaster crowdfunded almost £1m to bring the concept to the White Building in Hackney Wick.

He told The Caterer at the time: “It’s been so much easier than opening Silo six years ago. The world has changed in that time. The consciousness to waste and sustainability has become mainstream, and because of that businesses are reacting.”

The 50-cover restaurant, which serves a tasting menu only, will now close, though McMaster said the concept would continue to exist through “a series of collaborations and pop-ups that will bring our zero-waste philosophy to new cities and communities around the world”.

Addressing the closure on Instagram, he said: “It’s sad, but it’s also a miracle. I feel enormously happy when I think about how this shouldn’t have existed.”

He said that the restaurant had been proof that circular thinking can survive in the heart of capitalism: “In a world divorced from nature, we’ve tried to rebuild that relationship — not with words, but with action.”

“The analogy I like, and it’s been bouncing around my head, is it’s like a fish climbing a tree. The environment isn’t necessarily the one in which a fish can climb a tree, but I feel like by some miracle we’ve managed to climb the tree.”

He added: “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. We’ve trained a lot of people, we’ve innovated really, really hard. We don’t have a general waste bin, we do maximise 99% of the produce from these incredible farmers and it feels like this exhibition is complete.

“This is not the end, it’s the beginning. Smile, don’t cry.”