At The Pass with Rhekia Fahssi

🕒 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.

Pronouns

They/Them.

Currently  

Sous Chef, Rosalinda Restaurant.

Formerly

Toronto’s Mythology Diner and The Coup and Boxwood in Calgary.

Favourite dish to make right now

Zaalouk. It’s a Moroccan eggplant and tomato spread/dip -  smoky and garlicky with a nice hit of acid from some lemon. I’ll eat it with flatbread and fresh veggies. It’s perfect for snacking on while working from home.

Last cookbook purchase 

I haven’t purchased a cookbook in a while, but I recently read Burn The Place by Iliana Regan. A great memoir by a LGBTQ chef. 

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

Avocado on everything.

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

Preserved lemons! I make my own in large batches, they’re so versatile - can be used in vinaigrettes, cocktails, marinades, etc.

Biggest influences

Jennifer Crawford, Preeti Mistry, and my dad <3.

If you could eat at any restaurant in the world

Växthuset in Stockholm, Sweden. My grandma’s kitchen. That counts, right?

Last thing you ate

B’ssara and bread. It’s a fava bean soup with chili, cumin and olive oil.

Three must-have ingredients always in your fridge

Cholula, Nutritional Yeast, and Ras el Hanout.

Roasted Beets, Ras el Hanout Vinaigrette, Preserved Lemon, Saffron Meringue by Rhekia Fahssi.

Guilty pleasure

Movie theatre popcorn.

Top 3 favourite Toronto restaurants

Sugo, Dandylion, and Ital Vital.

Top 3 favourite Toronto bars

Wise Bar, The Beaver (RIP), and The Three Speed.

Go-to drink

Lagavulin 16, neat. 

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

Self criticism. A little bit is healthy; a lot will have you questioning every feature you make.

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

Constant experimentation and the willingness to fail at something. Sometimes recipes or dishes work the first time. Oftentimes they don’t, and that’s ok.

Hidden talent

I can do an excellent cartwheel.

Best career advice you ever received

My dad told me to never let someone else’s work ethic dictate your own.

Worst career advice you ever received 

That I would be more successful if I pretended to be “less trans.”

Your advice for a young cook starting out in the business 

Never stop learning or asking questions, and never ever let someone make you feel stupid or small for asking them.

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Toronto Restaurants supports all Trans, Non-Binary, Bipoc, Black, and LGBTQIA2S+ people.

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.

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