The “zero waste” dream of the three young owners of Nolla, Finland's first “NO WASTE” restaurant.
The restaurant
When you walk into a restaurant called “Zero” ( that's the meaning of the term Nolla in Finnish) and see a composter in the center of the restaurant, the message is clear and unmistakable: NO WASTE. Indeed, this is the prevailing philosophy at Nolla, the one Michelin green star restaurant of the three friends and partners Albert Sunyer, Carlos Henriquez, and Luca Bala in Helsinki. Opened in 2019, Nolla was Finland's first zero-waste restaurant. Extraordinary, when you consider that they were initially ambitious young people with little money in their pockets-they invested the basic sum of 15 thousand euros to open it-and a lot of courage to start an ethical business with no immediate guarantee of success.
The three chefs, from different countries in the Old Continent, realized they had a common dream of opening a fully sustainable restaurant while working at a two-Michelin-starred restaurant. Sustainability, however, is not a term they like to use, as it has become too fashionable (and, often, simply a red herring rather than a marketing strategy). Instead, their mantra is ingrained and concrete: “Reject, reduce, reuse, and only as a last resort, recycle.” Despite the nobility of the initiative, in the early days, it was not easy for the three chefs to get people to understand the project. "Most of the time they misunderstood us because they said we were the guys who collected and exploited surplus or leftovers from supermarkets to support our business. In Nolla, therefore, we stopped accepting surpluses from the food industry precisely so as not to justify them. We should not look for solutions to waste, but avoid it," they tell Siete Canibales.
At Nolla, named “Best Restaurant in Finland” in 2022, you can enjoy traditional Finnish cuisine with Mediterranean influences, made with strictly seasonal ingredients sourced from local farmers, fishermen, and ranchers. Every raw material is used 100 percent and if there is even the slightest waste this is composted and distributed to local farmers or a local microbrewery that uses it in the production process to create a circular economy. Extreme attention is paid to traceability, and no disposable packaging is used to transport raw materials, only reusable boxes and containers . At Nolla 's, “zero waste” transcends the kitchen and embraces the entire restaurant, so there are no garbage cans, staff uniforms are made from recycled sheets, napkins are made using fibers from plastic bottles converted into fabrics, empty wine bottles become glasses, and even the table and chairs are renewable. Everything has been thought out and designed from the perspective of non-waste.
Despite the excellent results and accolades they have received, Franch, Henriques and Balac continue to experiment with new strategies to move the ambitious project forward with the hope of spreading their message and being an inspiration to everyone in the hospitality industry and beyond. "We are not perfect, so we continue to generate waste that we would like to avoid. Our main goal is to reduce it and improve day by day, even though there are processes that are not solely up to us. We want people to see Nolla as a normal restaurant, rather than an extraordinary one, where you can eat and drink well without compromising sustainability," they confide.
