In a residential street in Mexico City operates Baldío, a restaurant that redefines the concept of zero waste in haute cuisine.
Founded by brothers Lucio and Pablo Usobiaga alongside British chef Doug McMaster —creator of the renowned Silo London, the world’s first zero waste restaurant—, the project seeks to demonstrate that another way of producing, cooking, and consuming is possible.
Baldío’s proposal not only stands out for its zero waste approach, but also for its roots in Mexican ingredients and techniques. Tamales with mushroom barbacoa, tepache or a cocktail of corn liqueur with totomoxtle ash, coexist with ferments and koji sauces created in the restaurant’s laboratory, called La Baldega.
“We have everything we need for this to be the norm and yet, it seems like a countercultural movement,” states Pablo Usobiaga in a conversation with El País portal. “Baldío shouldn’t be special in a country with such biodiversity and ancestral wisdom like Mexico”.
A zero waste kitchen, from the chinampa to the plate
Baldío works with ingredients from regenerative agriculture, many coming from the Arca Tierra network and their chinampas in Xochimilco. The meticulous planning covers from origin to disposal: nothing is wasted. Fruits and vegetables are treated as if they were meat cuts, extracting nutrients from peels, fibers, or cores that are normally discarded.
La Baldega, the restaurant’s fermentation center, transforms waste into new products: cartilages become broths; the white part of the lemon into cheong; fish spines into umami sauce fermented with koji. “If Baldío is the face of the project, La Baldega is the brain,” sums up Lucio Usobiaga.
An avant-garde gesture against food waste
In Mexico, around 20 million tons of food are wasted annually, while 24 million people suffer from hunger. The impact is also environmental: these wastes generate methane and deepen the climate crisis.
Baldío, like other new generation restaurants —SEM in Lisbon, Flores in the Netherlands, or Nolla in Finland—, proposes an alternative: minimize waste, redefine materials, and transform the diner’s experience.
Its cuisine, executed by a team led by Yucatecan chef Laura Cabrera, seeks deep and familiar flavors. Firm textures, spicy sauces, local vegetables caressed by fire.
An awarded yet discreet restaurant
Despite being awarded a green Michelin star, Baldío maintains modest communication about their sustainability work. They prefer diners to discover, if they wish, that there are no trash cans, that recycled glass becomes tableware, and that fermentation is not a trend, but a backbone.
The clientele is mainly foreign, a situation that worries its founders. “Everything here is Mexican. We want Mexicans to feel proud when they come in,” emphasizes Pablo Usobiaga.
Baldío is not simply a restaurant: it is a practical essay on how to feed the future with wisdom from the past, natural technology, and ethical conviction. An edible manifesto that transforms waste into culture, and leftovers into a symbol of belonging.
Cover photo: Bénédicte Desrus
