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The legendary zero-waste restaurant Silo has opened its first establishment outside of the UK. It’s called Baldío and is a collaborative effort with Arca Tierra, a leader in regenerative agriculture, in the heart of Mexico City.
Chef Douglas McMaster’s Silo, which was originally located in Brighton before moving to London, pioneered the zero-waste restaurant model. At Silo the team turns all waste food into delicious ingredients, abandoning cleaning chemicals in favor of natural biproducts from their food production, and relentlessly chasing down every single detail of their food production system to identify, reduce, and ultimately eliminate waste from their kitchen and restaurant.
Baldío revolutionizes the restaurant model in Mexico by plugging Silo’s expertise into the supply chain expertise of Arca Tierra, a Mexican leader in sustainable agriculture. Baldío’s philosophy is that waste is not a certainty but rather a failure of imagination, and by methodically working to eliminate food waste through techniques like composting and fermentation, the restaurant eliminates waste, reduce costs, and adds more deliciousness to its food offering. The totality of the approach serves as inspiration to not only other restaurants but other industries and institutions.
“Behind Baldío lies 25 years of history, the sum of the combined experience of Arca Tierra and Silo London, each from their own communities and latitudes,” co-founder Pablo Usobiaga told Fine Dining Lovers.
McMaster at Baldío
Baldío is the outcome of countless setbacks, shaped by a long journey of lessons learned. In a way, as McMaster would say, Baldío is standing on the shoulders of giants: Silo pioneering a successful zero waste system and Arca Tierra as one of the leading regenerative agriculture networks on the continent.
Baldo’s relationship with Arca Tierra is fundamental to the restaurant’s success. The organization has been at the forefront of Mexico’s regenerative agriculture movement for years and connects the restaurant with a supply network capable of delivering fresh, locally sourced ingredients grown with the utmost respect for the environment.
One of Arca Tierra’s most significant projects is its involvement with the chinampas of Xochimilco, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the last remaining examples of traditional Mesoamerican agriculture. The chinampas are ancient artificial islands used for farming for over a thousand years. Today, they serve as the primary source of produce for Baldío, creating a direct link to Mexico’s agricultural heritage.
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