BC’s culinary rock stars are gathering for an epic night of feasting and feting next Monday at the annual BC Restaurant Hall of Fame awards gala.
In all, 12 people will be inducted into the hall of fame this year in five categories: Active Restaurateur Award; Industry Award; Builder Award; Coffee and Beverage Award; and the Friend of the Industry Award.
Among the inductees is Sue Singer, president and founder of Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts (PICA), who will be receiving the Builder Award. Singer opened the private culinary school in 1997 at the entrance to Granville Island and says she is thankful PICA is being recognized by the BC hospitality industry.
“I am most proud of two things: the PICA staff who are individually and collectively some of the most genuine, nicest and hardest-working people I have the pleasure to work with,” she said. “I am also most proud of our graduates – to know that we helped get them get started and to see the accomplishments so many have achieved, it is extremely heart warming.”
While the restaurant industry, cooking styles and technology have changed drastically in the past 20 years, what hasn’t changed is the need for aspiring chefs to have a solid technical skill set to build on.
“When [PICA] opened its, there was no Food Network or Chef TV shows,” said Singer. “Chefs were certainly not the rock stars they are today. I remember some of our students, after watching the food shows, thought this could be them if they got training. We continue to say to this day, ‘When you graduate you are not a chef, you have mastered the skills to work in a kitchen. It can take years of hard work to earn the title Chef. Be respectful and learn, learn, learn’.”
In its nearly two decades of existence, PICA has produced more than 2,800 grads working in more than 35 countries worldwide – not to mention just about every kitchen in the city. Among the school’s more high profile grads are Mark Rausch (co-owner of Criterion in Bogota, considered to be Colombia’s best restaurant), Laura McLeod (owner of The Old Apothecary bakery in Halifax), and Mark McCrowe (Chopped Canada star and Gold Medal Plates finalist).
Winners of the BC Restaurant Hall of Fame’s Active Restaurateur Award include Neil Wyles of Hamilton Street Grill, Andre St. Jacques of Bearfoot Bistro (Whistler), Jamie Henderson of Keg Restaurants, and BC craft beer pioneer Paul Hadfield, owner of Spinnakers Brew Pub in Victoria.
Hadfield, an architect by trade, opened Spinnakers in 1984 as the first brew pub in Canada where beer was brewed and served on the same premises. It took Hadfield a year and half of lobbying the government to change liquor regulations to allow this radical concept, which has since proved popular across North America.
More than 30 years later, Hadfield still operates Spinnakers (where his daughter Kala is now a brewer) and is largely recognized as one of the fathers of the West Coast craft beer revolution.
Winners of the Industry Award included Pat Allabarton on Milestones and Franco Coccaro of La Bussola for Front of House, as well as Amber Anderson of H.A.V.E. Café and Chris Whittaker of Forage for Back of House.
Whittaker launched Forage inside The Listel Hotel on Robson close to four years ago with a menu that took the locavore trend to a new level. About 70 per cent of the menu comes from the Pacific Northwest, within about 100 miles, give or take. Another 20 per cent comes from the rest of BC and Canada, with the remainder accounting for items that just can’t be found locally – like lemons and sugar.
Dennis Green of the tourism and hospitality industry job search website Go2HR.ca was recognized with the Friend of the Industry Award, while Pete Boeda and Barney McKenzie of Bean Around the World were honoured with the Coffee and Beverage Award.
The BC Restaurant Hall of Fame gala takes place Monday, Sept. 28, at the Italian Cultural Centre. Tickets available here.