I grew up in the Kitchen, it has been a part of my life since I was 18 years old.
I started my illustrious career washing dishes on the overnight shift at the royal York hotel. 6pm to 2am. it was my trial by fire, my crucible. Its tough to try and explain, but for a kid who had terrible ADHD and couldn’t concentrate for more then 15 minutes in my life. I was immediately hooked. the buzz, the fast pace, always having something new to do. I worked every fucking position at that hotel. from overnight dishwasher, to daytime bartender at the infamous Library Bar, I worked as a food runner, a prep cook, a room service porter, jack of all trades indeed. before I learned about hospitality, I learned about hard work. I learned how to check my ego and be okay with cleaning 2 week old rotten food, out of a dish machine that broke down and no one bothered to fix it. I learned about working lots and lots of hours, I learned about working as a team. I learned camaraderie among misfits. I loved every second of it. Over the years I worked in some amazing resturants, and some not so amazing restaurants, but it wasn’t until I moved to Australia in 2010 that I learned about real cooking. from scratch, using the best ingridient’s we could get our hands on. Caring about every little thing that we put on the plate. I started to Care about the guests who walked through the door, I wanted to make sure they had the best possible experience. Before that moment I never thought about cooking as a career, it was always just something I was doing until I found out what I was passionate about. Turns out Cooking WAS what I was passionate about. In that moment I hatched a plan. When I got home, I would enrol in culinary school and see how far I could push myself. After graduating from Humbers culinary management program (with Honours if you can believe it) I quickly wrote my red seal and started my journey. From whistler to Vancouver, Australia to Toronto, I had the pleasure of working with some amazing chefs over the years.