Tag Archives: sustainably caught

Lunch at Silo

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(1) Doug door

Founder and Head Chef Douglas McMaster opening Silo’s door

 

Light the fireworks and pop the champagne: Of Slender Means returns. The inspiration that broke my six-month social media hiatus? Lunch at Silo – Brighton’s newest and hottest lunch spot.

Apart from a visit to a raw food cafe in San Francisco (the place of dreams) in 2009, I am not sure I have ever left a restaurant feeling so wonderfully light and so resoundingly happy to have spent my money there. In both concept and execution, Silo – which describes its food as “pre-industrial” and itself as the first zero-waste restaurant – is a dining miracle. The simplicity, sustainability, and creativity permeating its ethos are so close to the ambitions of this blog (though Silo founder and head chef Douglas McMaster – former BBC Young Chef of the Year, with St John and Noma on his CV – admittedly has the upper hand in culinary talents and compost systems … ) I felt the restaurant had almost been created for me. Just reading the menu on Silo’s website had my mouth watering – freshly caught fish, fermented brown rice risotto, beetroot juice, seaweed salsa … Continue reading →

Fresh from the greengrocers – an ode to purple sprouting broccoli

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Purple sprouting broccoli

Would we eat better if cookery programmes were axed from the telly? Almost certainly. Inspiration for the few, oppression for the many: it’s my theory that they set absurdly unrealistic expectations of the meals we should serve up on the table each evening. Creamed this, glazed that, breaded, roasted, toasted, marinated; nothing short of a restaurant-style meal will do.

Most recipe books (written often by same said TV chefs) are just as bad. And, slave to their instructions, we scour the supermarket shelves for expensive and exotic goods. Quick fix 30-minute, nay 15-minute recipes books may pose as more straightforward, but in requiring their own host of unseasonable fare or flavour cheats – curry paste or, worse, ketchup – are merely a milder symptom of the same problem. Continue reading →