Food Scraps Get Haute With Dan Barber's WastED London

This year's event uses its host city as culinary inspiration, offering playful interpretations of British classics like bubble and squeak and fish and chips prepared by the continent's most progressive chefs. "It's all very exciting," Barber told Bloomberg. "To put together a menu in a different city is to be forced to learn about its history and its agricultural realities. And the food scene in London is very vibrant." Iain Griffiths of Mr. Lyan offers his spin on sustainable cocktails while Henrietta Lovell of Rare Tea Company partners with pastry chefs to compose a nontraditional tea service. "What I like about London is the openness to these ideas. The culture around food waste is fantastic—way ahead of America's."

Barber is outspoken about the necessity for developed countries to rethink their valuation of food. Just because we're able to afford fresh produce doesn't mean that we should toss out day-olds. Our purchases strain the environment. Barber told Vice, "If you're a person who is concerned about food waste and then eat a meat-centric plate of food, twice a day, seven days a week, that diet is creating a tremendous amount of waste. It's truly inefficient to grow acres of wheat and then feed 80 percent of it to animals.”

Similarly, Barber hopes to use the constraints of availability to create new, delectable dishes. On his wastED menu is a burger comprised of a juice-pulp patty and off-grade cheese from a local monger pressed between a stale, rehydrated bun. His New York City restaurant serves a ravioli made from lamb leftover from the previous night and the shaved off portions of vegetables from another dish. "We can talk all we want about sustainability but we need to start with our own diets. Everyone eats three times a day, so you're voting three times a day. I think wastED is one way to start activating this idea."