🕒 3.5 min read

At The Pass is a monthly 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

Pastry chef, currently working as Talent Development Manager  F&B at The Savoy Hotel London.

Formerly 

Judge on CBC’s The Great Canadian Baking Show, Season 3; Pastry Chef and Owner of Madeleines, Cherry Pie and Ice Cream; Chef Instructor, George Brown College CHCA School of Continuing Education.

Favourite dish to make right now

Chestnut pancakes!

Last cookbook purchase

Baking with Bruno by Bruno Feldeisen. 

Have you read it/tried any recipes

Not yet. I want to try Gâteau à la Tomate. :)

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

Artificial preservatives.

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

Foraged/wild mushrooms. If we are going plant-based, we can add a lot of texture and flavour with this great protein base.

Your biggest influences

Dominique Ansel and Auguste Escoffier (I work in his kitchen…).

If you could eat at any restaurant in the world

My mom’s kitchen table - we grew up in the Kawarthas on Pigeon Lake. And there are too many to name; El Celler de Can Roca is on my list, if you can get me a table!

Last thing you ate 

Duck breast in simple wine reduction with dried figs.

Three must-have ingredients always in your fridge

Maple syrup, homegrown preserved hot peppers, and butter.

Guilty pleasure

Salt and vinegar potato chips, or as they say here in the UK, balsamic crisps. ;)

Top 3 favourite Toronto restaurants

Alo, Dailo, and Taste of China Seafood Restaurant.

Top 3 favourite Toronto bars

Bar Raval, Côte de Boeuf, and Reposado Bar. 

Go-to drink

French 75, dry.

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

Assuming that my way is the best way. ;)

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

Scrape your bowls. Your dishwasher and the owner will love you.

Hidden talent 

Eek… Old bartending trick - I can tie a cherry stem in a knot. Also, I am extremely accurate with weights and measures. 

Best career advice you ever received 

When you enter the kitchen be fully present and let nothing distract you. Leave the world behind and create. The world will still be there when you get out. 

Worst career advice you ever received

“As a girl you will never be hired for any job other than as an institutional cook. You should think about working in another industry.” - from my Chef Instructor teaching my Institutional Cooking Course in college in 1992. 

Your advice for a young cook starting out in the business 

If you start at the top you have nothing to look back upon. Start at the bottom and grow; slowly. You have a lifetime to become the best in the industry.

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At The Pass is a monthly series showcasing Toronto/GTA’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.

Know someone in Toronto or GTA who should be featured? Submit their name for consideration.