Trash Talk

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.