Tag: Trevor Middleton

Local Chef


Further to my last post, I’m pleased to present my chat with Chef Trevor Middleton, who’s with The Local Company in Toronto. I think you’ll find his thoughts on food, presentation, and the cultivation of relationships enlightening. Does it get my any closer to defining what “local” means in this day and age? Yes and no. See for yourself.

How would you describe yourself?

I’m a moody bastard.

Where do you source your meat?

It all comes from The Butcher Shoppe. All the meat coming through (there), you have a guarantee -you know it’s Canadian.

The biggest challenge has been getting set up with (local producers).

What about dairy?

I’ll use Mr. Dairy -they source Canadian -but I will also source artisanal stuff, like Quebec organic. And I’ll also use stuff from the street (Danforth Avenue). Sysco is a major supplier to all the restaurants. You have to use it -but I only spend about $500 a week with Sysco, whereas I spend $1400 or $1500 everywhere else. There’s a local market near here, a village market, and I drop $60-$100 a day there.

How does the word “local” relate to what you do?

It’s a conceptualized name, meant to be a local restaurant, more local to the Danforth. The food philosophy side came with me -this comes from my love and intimacy with food. I’ve done enough fine dining, … (to know) I don’t want run-of-the-mill. I don’t ever want to be known for pretty food; I want a wonderful experience. I want to feel good about myself and what I ate.

A lot of this goes to my childhood. I was raised poor and with Crohn’s disease, and I was always hungry. Because of my own disease, I have to make it work for me, I can’t use garbage. Anything processed makes me sick, and it’ll make you sick along the way too.

What is your ultimate ambition?

My end goal is to teach. I want to be teaching culinary arts within five years. Part of it is, i have a gift with mentoring the young, and taking in lost souls. If you’ve got it together, don’t talk to me. I want someone who’s a f*ck-up, that’s how I heal myself. My former dishwasher is a young man most thought was autistic, and I found out it’s just social anxiety. No one would let him do anything but wash dishes; now he cooks every dish on the menu. He doesn’t have a high school diploma, though I have him enrolled in George Brown as a mature student. He carries that passion for food through his life now.

What do you think of sensuality as it relates to the restaurant experience?

When I worked at The Boilerhouse, they had beautiful food, wonderful execution, they were the best of the best. They had high-level chefs too, but I noticed one thing within a few months, something they tried to beat out of me: they take the rustic-ness out of food. They wanted perfectly trained-out stuff. I want chunks, not perfection. Restaurants take the technique part too far; they forget food is a living thing, that it’s natural, just because it has to be pretty. i think a lot of newer chefs are in a backlash, so now there’s more comfy food again.

What’s the end goal, for you, as a chef?

It’s morphing. At the beginning, it’s like everyone: you want to be a superstar. But really, the greatest experience is to sit down, invite people to have a glass of wine, a good meal, and talk. Dining isn’t just about food, it’s about how you interact – how you interact with your world, your surroundings. I’d rather be known as someone who cooks plain, simple food, more than anything else.

Do you know the people you buy from?

I do. If I don’t come in, they go, “where have you been?” One Asian lady at the local market, she and her husband always joke with me. Once a week, because of the nature of our relations, they’ll give me a care package to take back to kitchen, I have friendly relationships with local people. There are no pretensions. But I lament not being able to drive hours out to food sources. In the past, I ordered from Echo Bay -they provide grass-fed organic beef -but that means I have to charge more, and when I do, people (customers) complain.

What’s a chef’s job?

To engender respect for agriculture. If i can’t get organic, there are companies that have ethical way of doing business. I don’t want the fancy stuff if it’s not harvested ethically or sustainably.

Local or “Local”?

Ironically or not, the term “local” has come to mean a number of things, especially when it comes to food. The word “local” is generally defined as “close by” -but in what context? And to whom?

I pondered these definitions as I took a gander recently to a farmers’ market near to where I grew up. Only one -yes, one -producer had a sign up stating where their veg & fruit comes from: Clement Farms, in Newcastle.

“I’m really glad you have that up,” I remarked to an individual guarding the cherries.

“What do you mean?” he inquired.

“Well… ” I hesitated, worried I might sound snobbish, “aren’t farmers’ markets supposed to be local?”

“I guess…”

I walked around the rows of farmers and their goods, and the whole thing struck me more as an exercise in feel-good-ism than a chance to educate people about food issues. I want my farmers’ market to be more than an outdoor produce section, and this one isn’t. It isn’t difficult to find eager local producers to be part of the market, either -numerous food groups exist and maintain active websites and online presences. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by better markets with more conscientious farmers, artisanal food producers, and super-cool suppliers.

Having bought potatoes, tomatoes, & the last of this year’s asparagus (the latter proved perfect for soup) along with cherries from Niagara (which, taste and texture-wise, definitely beat those horrible woody things from California), I walked off still thinking hard about what local means, and whether caring about its definition is the oeuvre of food snobs, or good, simple common sense.

This internal debate about “local” came up a while ago, when I had a beautiful dinner at a restaurant located in the eastern end of Toronto. The gorgeous, white-and-wood-toned room is not exactly in the most culinary astute of areas; it’s located in what we Torontonians call Greektown, meaning there’s lots of souvlaki, dolmades, and flaming feta to be had. That stretch of Danforth Avenue has experienced a kind of renaissance the last few years, as other cultural tastes moved in -you can find Thai, Indian, and vegetarian restos along with the Greek stand-byes. But fine(ish) dining, with a big dollop of Locavore? Not so much. Not until The Local Company.

From the looks of their Facebook page, it’s being promoted more as a Danforth party spot than a place you’d go for a fine, inspiring meal. But that’s just what a companion and I enjoyed a few weeks back. I wrote a review if you’re curious about the meal details. (Addendum to that: I still dream about the flavourful goat cheese appetizer and the moist deliciousness of the chicken main.) Tomorrow, I’m posting my interview with The Local Company’s chef Trevor Middleton. I think his answers will surprise and delight. That definition of “local” means a lot of things to him, mainly involving the cultivation of relationships in the immediate community, which is certainly refreshing to hear in this age of TV-star chefs and kitchen egos.

I’m still not sure what “local” means, or why it has to mean so many things to so many people, or why it’s so hard to find actual, local food in outlying areas. I’ll post more thoughts on this in the coming weeks, including Chef Jamie Kennedy‘s reactions when I asked him about it on the radio recently. In the meantime, look out for the chat with Chef Middleton a demain.

In the meantime, have a delicious Monday.

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