NOT SO FANTASTIC

From takeaway containers to cling film, plastic has always been a key part of many restaurant kitchens, writes LEE TRAN LAM. But as chefs aim to be more sustainable, is running a plastic-free business possible?

- LEE TRAN LAM

Restaurant kitchens are so dependent on plastic that a chef once punched Lennox Hastie in the stomach for misplacing a roll of cling film. “I was so upset,” says Hastie, who runs Sydney’s Firedoor. “I was pretty young and I burst into tears.” He’d simply put the cling film on the left side of the kitchen, instead of the right – and while his boss’s overreaction was out of line, it also proves that plastic wrap rules kitchens. At the first restaurant Hastie worked in – at age 15, in Sussex, England – he repeatedly reached for the plastic. He’d tend to a chicken stock or let a veal broth bubble away for nine hours, then tightly cover each one with cling film once it was done. “Which was completely stupid,” he says, “because as soon as it cools down, it has a natural layer of fat to protect it.” But hey, he was just a kid, obeying older chefs.

Plastic was so key to his culinary education that he was taught how to expertly cover things. The correct approach was to use the smallest amount possible – a trick that some chefs could stand to learn. “They’ll wrap something and it’s like they’re wrapping a Christmas present: round and round, so many times.” But going through wads of cling film was normal at top restaurants with so many ingredients to prep and preserve. And in many big UK kitchens, Hastie noticed each section would label their roll, because it was a prized item that other chefs might steal.