🕒 5 min read

At The Pass is a weekly series showcasing Toronto’s best chefs. You won’t find any celebrity chefs featured here. Perhaps you already know these fine cooks, but maybe not. They’re not famous - yet. But it’s time these talented, passionate, hard-working chefs got a bit of the spotlight.

Currently

Chef, Sakai Bar; part owner of Affinity Fish.

Formerly 

Grace, URSA, Tosho Knife Arts, Actinolite, Shoushin, The Restaurant at Pearl Morissette. 

Favourite dish to make right now 

Aka Dashi (red miso soup). We make our own blend of miso at Sakai. To most people it may seem simple, but to make a truly delicious dashi is super difficult. I taste every soup that goes out and I enjoy tasting it every time. 

Last cookbook purchase

Kobe Desramaults by Kobe Desramaults and Rik Van Puymbroeck. It’s the cookbook from In De Wulf, and Chambre Separee in Belgium. I bought it after my meal at Chambre Separee. 

Have you read it/tried any recipes

I have read it cover to cover. I’ve not tried any recipes, but that’s usually the case for me with all cookbooks. I use them more as a reference tool.  

One dish or ingredient you’d like to see gone from menus

Maybe not one ingredient, but more so the gratuitous use of Japanese ingredients or techniques in Western restaurants without the chef having taken the real time (years) to learn them. 

And one dish or ingredient that you’re excited about right now and would like to see on more menus

Maybe not a single ingredient, but the fish that me and my business partner are fishing out of Georgian Bay right now. We are working with a First Nations commercial fisherman from the Neyaashiinigmiing Reserve (Cape Croker). We’re working on bringing what we understand to be some of the first Ike jime (Japanese method of killing fish humanely) freshwater fish to restaurants in Toronto including Sakai Bar. 

Biggest influences

My fiancé, my late mother, Jacob Sharkey Pearce (chef/owner of URSA) and Jackie Lin (chef/owner of Shoushin).

If you could eat at any restaurant

Sushi Sugita in Tokyo. Or Sushi Sho in Hawaii, the way he (chef Keiji Nakazawa) works with local Hawaiian fish but applies traditional methods really resonates with me and what I hope to do with my food.

Last thing you ate 

Kraft Dinner. Not unusual for me.

Three must-have ingredients always in your fridge

Butter, Parmigiano Reggiano, Eggs. 

Guilty pleasure

Cheap sushi. 

Top 3 favourite Toronto restaurants 

Actinolite, Good Fork, Kyouka Ramen. 

Top 3 favourite Toronto bars

Bar Piquette, Loveless Cafe, The Hole in the Wall. 

Go-to drink 

Negroni or a glass of Rioja.

One habit you have in the kitchen that you should lose, but can’t seem to shake

Losing pens or Sharpies. 

One habit you have in the kitchen that will inspire young chefs

To get where I am today, I worked hard even outside of work hours. When I was younger I really wanted to learn katsuramuki (the Japanese knife technique that allows you to cut a cylindrical vegetable into a continuous sheet). After my shift, I would go home and practice on cucumbers with a bowl in my lap while watching a movie. When I was learning to make sushi, I took a piece of plastic wrapped rice and practiced the motions of molding the rice on the subway commute home. 

Hidden talent

I can ride a unicycle. 

Best career advice you ever received

“It’s just dinner.” - Jacob Sharkey Pearce.  

Worst career advice you ever received

“Find a new career, you’ll never make it in this industry.”

Your advice for a young cook starting out in the business

Make sure you know your worth. 

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In order to support chefs during this time, the monthly At The Pass series is now WEEKLY. Know someone in Toronto or GTA who should be featured? Submit their name for consideration. And yes, you can nominate yourself. 

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