Eat Your Greens: Meet the head chefs pioneering zero waste cooking at this experimental Leeds restaurant
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That means that head chefs Sam Griffiths and Angus Evans must invent creative solutions to ensure that none of their ingredients end up in the bin.
It’s for that reason that Eat Your Greens is part restaurant, part science lab - and it’s changing the way diners think about food.
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Launched seven years ago, the talented team developed distinctive flavours through rigorous testing with ferments.
Eat Your Greens quickly built its reputation as the go-to spot for high quality organic dishes, and has since appeared on countless ‘best of’ lists in Leeds.
Sam, 29, and Angus, 27, arrived at the restaurant at a similar time, bringing with them a shared philosophy. We caught up with the duo as we celebrate the amazing restaurants that make Leeds such a great place to live as part of our #LoveYour campaign.
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Hide Ad“We both became obsessed with the zero waste thing after reading The Zero Waste Blueprint, a book from the London restaurant Silo,” said Angus. “We really wanted to champion organic produce.”


One dish that perfectly showcases their inventive approach to cooking is the mussels, which have regularly featured on the menu in different forms.
The process begins with sourcing the freshest mussels, Angus explained, before they are cooked gently in a parsnip velouté and deglazed with cream, creating a rich, luxurious sauce.
Leftover beer from the taps, which would otherwise be discarded, is fed to a kombucha starter, transforming it into a sharp and flavourful beer vinegar. The plate is dressed with the vinegar, adding a tangy complexity that complements the mussels’ natural sweetness.
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Hide AdSlices of toasted sourdough complete the dish, perfectly crisped for texture and offering a vehicle for scooping up sauce. The result is a layered experience, with every element contributing flavour.
At Eat Your Greens, fermentation plays a central role. Angus said: “We always try to get things processed down and store them away so we can pluck from all these different flavours.”


Sam agreed that fermentation can be transformative, adding: “Sometimes we make a dish, but we can’t finish it until we ferment it.
“We don’t know what a sauerkraut is going to taste like until we eat it in two weeks’ time, because the flavour of the cabbage flips completely. It’s the same with any vegetable - it completely changes the dynamic of the component.”
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Hide AdThis approach allows the pair to create unexpected flavours from everyday ingredients. Sam continued: “We change the menu all the time for that reason. Once we taste something, we start looking around the kitchen and seeing what we can add.”
On top of the culinary possibilities, the chefs are passionate about minimising waste for environmental reasons.
“It’s a very ethical way to run a business,” said Sam. “Through using by-products, we’ve realised that you can also save a lot of your costs. Plus there’s a lot of flavour to be extracted.”


One of the team’s current favourite zero waste innovations is homemade Marmite. Sam said: “We use the leftover bread to make it. I like to have it with scrambled eggs, freshly cultured butter, and homemade sour cream on top.
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Hide Ad“It’s a dish that’s made entirely of three different waste products. Cream becomes sour cream. Bread becomes Marmite. Eggs that would have gone in the bin are scrambled.”
Angus added: “If you read our menu, it’s very simple - it’s things like pork chop, monkfish, mussels. People have had those before. But the little twists we add through fermentation take them to the next level.”
Unlike in some traditional kitchens, Angus explained how Eat Your Greens fosters a collaborative work environment.
“Having two head chefs isn’t common; the kitchens I’ve worked in have always been quite hierarchical. But here, we all sit down together and bounce ideas around. If someone's got a really strong idea, we’ll push that forward.”
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Sam agreed: “It’s not like the old-fashioned kitchens of the 1990s with those very shouty, tyrannical kind of chefs. We try to get our chefs up to speed as quickly as we can - and we want them to play around with things.”
It’s an approach that means the kitchen can be flexible, creative and constantly evolving. Angus said: “You can come in on a Tuesday night and, by Saturday, everything will be slightly different.
“We bring back some dishes, like the beetroot carpaccio, but it will always be different to how we’ve done it before. Different rubs, different processing, different ideas.”
The restaurant’s focus on organic, seasonal ingredients also helps to keep the menu fresh and exciting. Sam said: “Our supplier gives us a list once a week, so we have no idea what we’ll be cooking until it arrives.”
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Both chefs are excited about the produce they’ll get to work with as the colder weather arrives. Angus said: “We’ve got venison tartare arriving soon. And Jerusalem artichokes - I always miss those.
“When the list of available produce comes through on a Tuesday, it’s like Christmas. We’re working with exciting ingredients that we’ve sometimes never seen before, like kaleidoscope radishes. They’re green on the outside with pink and white flesh. When you cut through them, the pattern changes.”
Sam added: “We’ve recently been told about a strain of mushrooms that were found in the Yorkshire Dales - when you smell them, it’s exactly like tarragon.
“I’ve been in this industry for just over a decade, but I’m still always being surprised by organic produce.”
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Hide AdWe’re writing a love letter to Leeds - here’s how you can get involved
We’ve launched our new #LoveYour campaign to celebrate the amazing local businesses, people, places and quirks that make Leeds so great.


The campaign, which comes in the run-up to the festive season, will be a love letter to the city as we focus on everything from amazing pubs to top notch chippies, from the most beautiful walks to family favourite attractions.
Our reporters are out and about experiencing the community afresh and reporting back, but we also need you to share your top local tips. If you #LoveYour - we want to know what and why.
Let us know what you think makes Leeds special by emailing [email protected].
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