Chef Nate Green in zero-waste dinner collaboration

 Chef Nate Green of Rhoda has teamed up with Grassroots Pantry chef, Peggy Chan to create a one-off dinner which highlights the importance of zero waste food preparation.

Nate Green of Rhoda

The two chefs could not have more opposing approaches to food. A former butcher, Nate Green is known for his love of cooking whole animals over charcoal, with his 12-hour slow cooked Rhug Estate salt marsh lamb shoulder one of the stand-out dishes at Rhoda, while Peggy Chan, owner and chef of Grassroots Pantry champions a plant-based vegan-friendly menu.

However, in a bid to promote the importance of cooking and eating with minimal-to-no waste in a very wasteful city, the two have come together for a one-off dinner with no meat or animal-derived ingredients that uses all parts of every ingredient, including off-cuts and trimmings.

Part of The Collective’s Table series which has seen Chan team up with some of Hong Kong’s brightest chefs – including Amber’s Richard Ekkebus –  the latest installment to held at Grassroots Pantry involved complex vegetarian dishes, such as Savoy cabbage and turnips with fennel and caper dressing and shiitake and teff ‘gnocchi’ with maitake, broccolini, walnut-herb pesto and smoked macadamia Parmesan.

In a city with restaurants at every turn but a sizeable portion of the population living in straitened circumstances, Chan said she wanted to press home the importance of not wasting food.

“It takes a skillful chef with a practical approach to be able to create delicious and inventive dishes using one whole ingredient in its entirety. I am consistently impressed by Nate’s rustic cooking that never fails to finish with a tasteful touch,” she said.

Green, who came over to Hong Kong to open Jason Atherton’s 22 Ships in 2014 and opened his own restaurant, Rhoda last year, added:

“I’m really stoked to be doing a collaboration with Peggy. I’m looking forward to showing people that I’m not all about cooking big bits of meat and butchering down animals. I think people forget that the first dish I ever put on a menu in Hong  Kong was the cauliflower salad at 22 Ships.”

The dinner is on Wednesday, 22 February and priced at HK$680 per person, with HK$300 extra for wine pairing.

10% of all proceeds will also go to Hong Kong’s LAP charity for the city’s stray animals.

Peggy Chan of Grassroots Pantry