“I don’t want to grow rice but I use that as a guide and find my own way to respect the natural systems,” says McMaster. Written in 1975 it traces one man’s life long battle to create a natural system for growing rice that was better than industrialised processes. Much of McMaster’s passion for resurrecting and reinventing natural systems can be traced back to a book he can still quote, called ‘ One Straw Revolution’ by Masanobu Fukuoka. I love the idea of wiping them out of our waters by eating them, using them instead of tinned tuna.” They’re cannibals, they eat their own young and will destroy anything. They’re so well armoured that nothing in British waters stands a chance. Or American Signal Crayfish, they’re evil bastards. How mad is that? They don’t taste of anything but you can add flavour to them. “Moon jellyfish invaded a Scottish power plant and it had to be abandoned. I love the idea of cooking it as a poetic way to resist the invasion.” It’s the world’s most invasive plant species, it’s a crazy pest that can puncture tarmac, a plant terrorist if you like. “I want to tap into food resources that are taboo or forgotten about. McMaster also never stops thinking about unusual ingredients, specifically those he terms ‘ off-grid’. While anything fermented has the risk of sounding trendy, Silo’s commitment to recycling and reusing runs deeper than making kimchi, hence the jam-jars, plates made from plastic bags and a huge composter in the middle of the restaurant which supplies nearby neighbours and friends. There’s so much to learn about the worlds of bacteria and fermentation, we become like an organic machine.” “When there’s a hunger gap we get creative with pickling and fermenting. If someone says it’s hard then I put more energy into creative solutions,” he says. “Someone told me Silo couldn’t exist so I think that it can. That problem solving defiance is the perfect prism through which to tackle food waste. I sometimes think I need to be more commercial but my biggest passion are big ideas that are expressed in an anarchistic way." “I’m not commercial, I want to be radical and can’t help myself. McMaster, the son of an artist, embraces his love of an anarchic alternative. Radical isn’t a dirty word at Silo, rather an empowering one. Sail it by ‘pirate ship’, it’s a nice thing to do and there’s some value in that,” he says. I don’t think shipping will return to sailing by any means but you never know what sort of businesses might spark up if they want to work with wind. “Using sailing boats is a radical example that starts a train of thought that could lead to something commercial.
Ingredients like coffee he imports by sailing ship or ‘pirate ships’ as he likes to call them. Whole foods arrive by reusable containers or milk pail.
#SILO RESTAURANT FREE#
Silo lets the food speak for itself, while the plates are made from recycled plastic bagsįood wise Silo sits between paleo, vegan and nose to tail approaches to food, focusing on small producers who help McMaster keep to his packaging free ethos. Training people to be intuitive and grasp it and be able to teach others - it’s like trying to be a Jedi." “Teaching someone about sourdough doesn’t happen overnight, your brain has to change. It’s doing it on a larger scale and training other people to do it that’s hard,” he explains. “During my cooking career I’d butchered animals, churned butter and milled flour on a small scale but by no means to excess. He’s defiant and disarmingly knowledgeable on everything from closed loop systems and circular economies to natural processes and the perils of industrialisation. A former chef at St John’s Bread & Wine in London, McMaster underwent a 'global food pilgrimage' ending up working in Melbourne on a former incarnation of Silo before setting up in Brighton two years ago. “In nature there is no waste, so being zero waste is being as close to nature as possible, that’s the key. “If it comes in a packet, there’s probably something wrong with it,” exclaims McMaster with his infectious conviction.
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