Silo: A Zero-Waste Restaurant in London by Nina+Co.

Tables and stools made from Mycelium.

Wall light made from crushed glass.

Nina Woodcroft has created interiors for some of the world’s best-known hotels. But that’s the last thing that sets her apart as a name to know.

“Fifteen years into my design foray, I grew frustrated with the prevalent disregard for the wellbeing of people and the planet,” says the London-based designer, who founded Nina+Co in 2014 “to collaborate with other change-makers, like-minded clients, innovative designers and local craftspeople on carefully selected projects with a strong focus on sustainability”. Her secret sauce? Her choice of materials, which includes such curiosities as mushroom mycelium (gasp!), algae and bioplastics.

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Pendant light made from seaweed.

In 2019, Nina+Co designed Silo, the world’s first zero-waste restaurant by award-winning chef Douglas McMaster (the restaurant trades directly with farmers to compost any leftover scraps in a bid to ‘close the loop’ in the food production process). And in doing so, she echoed the brand’s zero-waste philosophy in the design. “We composed the interior out of waste or thoughtfully sourced, natural materials that will either biodegrade or easily disassemble for repurposing in the future,” she explains. In keeping with the theme, the interior is an unlikely la-la land of moulded seaweed pendants, furniture made of unusable timber offcuts, and floors assembled from pure, natural cork (harvested by hand without harming the tree). “Cork oak forests capture five times more Co2 than is used in the manufacture of flooring, making cork a carbon negative product,” reveals Nina.

The open kitchen is skirted by an eighteen-seater dining bar that is undoubtedly the restaurant’s centrepiece. Not only because it offers an intimate connection between the diners, the chef and the ingredients, but because it’s a shining example of beautiful recycling. You see, the front of the bar is entirely cloaked in recycled leather and the bartop is made up of repurposed polyester packaging waste. “The bartop, made by Smile Plastics, can be recycled many times over,” says Nina, whose furniture scheme also included circular, three-legged dining tables and a five-metre-long waiter station custom-made in sustainably sourced English ash wood by Jan Hendzel.

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Perhaps most curious of all is the cocktail lounge furniture, which Nina created out of magic mushrooms (yes, really). “The furniture was grown from mycelium, the main constituent of fungus,” she says. “As one of the most important organisms on our planet, it’s a super-sustainable construction material that is not only renewable and compostable, but also endlessly available.”

For guests here, there are several lightbulb moments (literally). Thirty bespoke wall lights, custom-designed for Silo by Nina+Co, pack a punch in both style and sustainability. “They were made by a local potter using crushed glass wine bottles from the restaurant. Through a unique, energy-reduced glass recycling process developed in-house by Douglas, the crushed glass is moulded and fired in a kiln to create stunning, textural objects. These can be crushed and recycled again and again,” shares Nina. With a focus on minimum waste and maximum taste, it’s clear that this restaurant is equal parts green, lean and mean.

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[Images courtesy of Nina+Co. Photography by Sam Harris.]