Marking ten years of Silo, chef Douglas McMaster hosted a one-night celebration with artist Joost Bakker, broadcaster George Lamb and chef Thomasina Miers to reflect on food, climate and what comes next
From fermenting on rooftops to grinding flour in-house, Silo has spent the past decade rewriting the rules of dining. When chef and founder Douglas McMaster opened the restaurant in Brighton in 2014, it was billed as the world’s first zero-waste restaurant – a bold claim backed by equally bold action. In its current Hackney Wick home, Silo continues to challenge industrial food systems with a menu built from whole, locally sourced ingredients, a refusal to own a bin and a deep belief in circular design. It truly is an operating system for how food might work in the future.
To mark ten years of this radical vision, Silo hosted a one-night-only celebration in partnership with Ruinart, pairing its new Blanc Singulier Édition 19 with six fine-crafted courses. The evening brought together friends and collaborators old and new – from McMaster’s early mentor Joost Bakker to regenerative farming advocate George Lamb and chef-restaurateur Thomasina Miers – for a conversation on zero waste, soil health and what a second civilisation might look like. Below, we hear from each of the panellists.
Douglas McMaster – Chef and founder of Silo
“When I was a kid and a teenager, I was very, very shy and afraid of the world… I always felt like an outcast, like there was something wrong with me at school. I couldn’t understand what the teachers were teaching, and all the other kids just grasped these subjects effortlessly. So of course, I dropped out and dropped into the local kitchen, washing dishes.
“When you feel dumb for a decade or more, when you feel like you don’t fit into the world, you kind of build up a sense of resentment – a sadness, a void. That was there throughout my whole childhood. It sounds kind of metaphysical, but it was very real. And then I was working around the world in world-class restaurants, and it was probably worse than how I felt in school – the bullying, the violence, even waste.
“Just as I was about to give up, I left a lunch service in Sydney and heard this loud thumping rock and roll music. This construct had appeared – like something out of Mad Max. It was the Greenhouse. I remember thousands of terracotta pots carpeting the exterior with wild strawberries, a big stainless-steel tank doing something magical, and tons of different plants hanging off the sides. I got inside and met Joost that same day. He told me he wanted to bring this to London, and asked, ‘Would you be interested in being the chef?’ I didn’t know what this project was, but I had this innate sense that this was the rest of my life. I said yes.
“I felt completely unseen and kind of worthless throughout my education. That void I carried for years – not in that moment, but in that experience – disappeared. Psychodynamically, that was a lack of meaning, a lack of purpose, a lack of place in the world. Joost gave me that. That’s why Silo exists.”
Joost Bakker – Artist, designer and visionary behind the Greenhouse project
“I grew up in the Netherlands in a polder – land drained in the 1700s – which was known as the most fertile land on Earth. I remember watching a plough being pulled, and thousands of seagulls following it. My dad said, ‘Worms mean happy people.’ I didn’t understand what he meant until years later when I was in the Himalayas. I saw another plough, the worms again, and realised: that’s what he meant. That started me on a journey to understand how critical soil health is to the health of the population.
“In the mid-90s, I started a worm farm. I was working as a florist in Melbourne restaurants and saw how much waste they were producing. I started creating projects and installations to show restaurants that what was going in the bin was actually really precious. Twenty-five years ago, it was impossible to have a conversation with anyone about this stuff – people just weren’t interested. Now, everyone’s waking up to how critical this is. That gives me hope.
“One of the most powerful examples was Future Food System, a two-bedroom house we built in Melbourne’s Federation Square. It was off-grid, zero-waste, and we grew over five tonnes of food in less than 100 square metres – from fish and shellfish to crickets and hundreds of edible plants. It showed that a city like London could feed itself. We just need to eat differently.
“We recently completed a school built from hemp we planted in October 2023 – on soil that had previously grown cotton and potatoes. That hemp became the school desks and doors. We also used compressed straw and timber from agroforestry systems. Farmers can be builders, regenerators, rewilders. To me, that’s the future.”
George Lamb – Co-founder of Wildfarmed
“I used to be a TV host – in fact, I hosted BBC Young Chef of the Year in 2004, which Dougie won. We’ve known each other for over 20 years. But at a certain point, I started to feel like nothing was really changing. I wanted to work upstream, at the system level.
“So I set up a project in a struggling comprehensive school in North London. There were supposed to be 1,200 students – they were down to 450. I said, let’s turn this into a Jedi training school for kids. We created a six-acre ecological farm next door and started teaching the students how to grow food, how to think philosophically, how to be expansive. The biggest moment for me was kicking out the school’s catering company – I nearly had a stand-up fight with the regional manager. But by doing that, I brought in Chefs in Schools, and it transformed everything.
“After that came Wildfarmed. We don’t own land – we work with conventional farmers and say: we’ll pay you a premium if you farm regeneratively. Now we’re supplying Shake Shack, Tesco, M&S. And the farmers love it.
“The commodities market doesn’t value ecosystem services, so we’ve built something that does. Better farms are wild farms. Our definition of regenerative farming is simple: quality food grown in nature-rich landscapes. We don’t want it to become a meaningless word.
“We’re on the long road to Greggs. That was our homepage slogan. We’re not trying to build a niche product for wealthy people – we want to democratise real food. And if we set our North Star around that, I think we’ll be alright.”
Thomasina Miers – Chef, founder of Wahaca and Chefs in Schools
“I co-founded Wahaca 18 years ago, and from the beginning we were trying to recycle food waste and push for more vegetarian food – a third of the menu then, half now. We’ve proven you can have a group of 14 restaurants and still do things that are positive for the environment.
“But for me, one of the greatest solutions – especially in a society that feels stressed and disconnected – is cooking. If people don’t understand the joy and pleasure of food, they won’t eat in harmony with the environment. That’s why I helped set up Chefs in Schools. You put one trained chef into a school kitchen and you can completely transform how hundreds of children think and feel about food.
“I also think we’re going to hear more and more about nutrient density – the link between how something is grown and how nourishing it is. I recently met an incredible farmer in Scotland – a Nuffield scholar growing wheat for Wildfarmed – who wrote a major paper on this. We’re overfed and undernourished. We need to restore that link between soil health and nutrition.
“And then there’s creativity. One of our most hopeful dishes came from trying to use up cauliflower hearts that would otherwise be thrown away. We made a dip with roasted cauliflower and carrots, beans, and leftover cheese – and it was delicious. I love food like that. It tastes good, and it feels good.
“Every meal is a decision. Ask yourself – am I supporting a farmer working in harmony with nature? Or giving my money to big food? Every bite is a vote.”
