A chat with Where the Light Gets In

"We work directly with farmers and fishermen from all over the isles to create a menu regulated by the seasons and our own creative touch. 

"Produce from our community garden lays the roots of the menu, followed by the efforts of the farmers and fishermen we work with."

In this the year 2024 the above mission statement could be from just about any restaurant, such is the focus on sustainable and conscientious dining. But back in 2016, when Sam Buckley opened Where the Light Gets In, this sort of approach was far less commonplace.  

Awarded a Michelin Green Star in 2021 for being "at the forefront of the industry when it comes to their sustainable practices", WTLGI is now ticking along at its own pace while the competition has caught up, trowel and wicker basket in hand. 

David Adamson paid a visit to the Stockport restaurant - and rooftop kitchen garden The Landing - to catch up with Sam and talk all things conscious consumption.

David (D): How have things been since being awarded the Michelin Green Star? It seems the culture around restaurants has caught up with what you've been doing since you opened. 

Sam (S): Well we've always had interesting diners who are a bit more switched on and engaged. As with any award or accolade or good news story you get a slew of people coming in with their wooden cutlery, but they've always been a mixed crowd with lots of interesting things to say. 

When I opened the restaurant at the beginning I did give myself a lot of boundaries, like not wasting food, whole animal butchery, and the biggest one being working directly with farmers and fishermen and having conversations with them. I just wasn't calling it sustainable cooking. 

Also growing up in Stockport, you don't waste food in the house. So it's more like common sense, but it's talked about in terms of 'sustainability'. The first time I was offered a book was along the lines of  'the sustainable chef', and I don't really like the term; I find that new movement slightly problematic because it feels like it's coming from a place of dogma - that it's up to us to solve the problems of the world.

I don't think that's a good way to eat or a good way to live. You shouldn't be doing something because you feel you have to or that you have an obligation to do it. You should be doing something because it makes sense to you and it fits in with the way that you want to live your life.

D: And people seem to speak with their wallets nowadays; all you have to be able to affect change, in the small way that any individual can, is what you choose to spend your money on.

S: It costs money to have ethics doesn't it? Costs a lot of money. And people without them are still cashing in on apparently having them as well. I think that's the thing that I struggle with.  

When we started we just said, 'This is what we're doing' because it made business sense as well. It makes business sense to treat your team well and not have a high staff turnover because you don't want to keep training people. It makes business sense not to waste food. It's common sense, and it's common decency. 

We were quickly heralded as part of this new movement of sustainable restaurants, and so before you know it you're like, 'Hang on. What are we? Why are we labelled as this? Do we want to be labelled as that?' That movement feels like it can be quite sort of anxiety-inducing. That you have to be like this because the world is in this state, and if you don't do that, it's on you. That's how it feels to me.

D: This approach that you took, of common sense as you put it, seems to have taken on a life of its own; restaurants wanting to appear to be sustainable and conscientious. Ultimately you could argue that this has made Where The Light Gets In stand out less and appear less special, so I'm wondering where this shift in the culture leaves you now? 

S: I think it could leave us looking like a bit of a parody of the whole thing. Me at the table saying 'These courgettes are from this person who cycled with the seeds from this place', and you just think 'Oh fuck here we go'. It becomes a bit of a parody and as a diner you wonder, 'How sincere is this?'

We tend to think about trends as being good or bad. Like the push to shop locally and independently, that's a good, healthy trend. That's a trend that we can all get behind; shop local and support your local independent stores. Go out, have a wander, meet people in the community. That's a good trend. Then maybe the airfryer, that's not a bad trend, but it maybe doesn't feel as wholesome. I'm interested in holistic approaches and I've always been interested in making a connection with the food I'm buying or the shoes I'm wearing. 

So yeah, they are part of a bit of a trend, the sustainable restaurant, locally sourced or however you want to put it; restaurants with conscience. They're a healthy trend, but I think you've got to be careful about it becoming a parody, because then you start to sell it back to yourself and it can become an echo chamber where every restaurant you walk in you've got a 45 minute story before you get to enjoy your courgettes.

D: Do you feel like the restaurant's at a place now where you can branch out and do other things?

S: What Cal's doing in the kitchen now is so exciting, so it's in very good hands. I'm enjoying doing more projects outside of the restaurant. We did something called Seed to Loaf with three primary schools. So we went and milled grain into flour, turned it into starter, took the kids to the bakery to bake the bread and and then brought it up to a restaurant to eat. 

We did that with three primary schools and we're trying to roll it out with the council as part of the curriculum. Imagine the confidence that would give you; the agency you'd have by 11 years old, knowing how to create something from nothing. It runs deeper than just the bread.

D: I guess people's relationship with food has become divorced more and more over the years, to the point where you can pick something up and you're not really familiar with how it is that it actually came into being, it's just there wrapped up on a shelf. So to eat some bread knowing full well where it's come from, because you ground it up yourself, must be an interesting change. 

S: It was so exciting working with the kids. And making bread is just a nice process. It doesn't have to be alien, and if you can get across the idea that anyone can do it then that feels really special. And it's a powerful idea, the democratisation of food; that you can grow it yourself and own it and create something from it.  

For further information on future events involving Where The Light Gets In follow them on Instagram

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