When Jonathan Forsythe first set foot in a little fast-food joint in Hull called La Kabane, he thought he had died and gone to heaven. Or maybe it was that other place?
“It was a revelation,” says the Ottawa-based chef who was living in Hull at the time. He was tired and hungry, roughed up from a late night working dinner service and a few too many post-work libations, when he came upon a small white building he hadn’t noticed before. Above the door was a picture of a skull wearing a chef’s hat. Intrigued, he went inside, where he found the walls lined with posters of heavy metal bands, steeped in the imagery of living corpses, ragged crows and crucifixion parables. The menu was mostly hamburgers (starting around $5) and heavy metal blared through the speakers. “Not only that, it was good metal,” Forsythe recalls. He poured over the burger options — the Cryptopsy, the Satyr, the Mephisto — and looked around for the owner.
Medhi Galehdar and Forsythe hit it off immediately. They shared a passion for the music and its importance to those who work in kitchens. According to Forsythe, the music is representative of those who are drawn to the back-of-house. “It’s technical, anti-social, energetic, and yes, it can get pretty nerdy,” he says, “It’s our common ground — I know I can walk into any kitchen where they are listening to metal and find my place, even if it’s not my favourite style. It’s like, “Yes, I would love to listen to some Decrepit Birth right now.”
Galehdar agrees. “It’s empowering,” he says. “Cooks are usually oppressed, underrated and underestimated — metal lets you let loose.” And while heavy metal can invoke “satanic panic” with its gruesome and often profane imagery, Medhi says this is just the provocative and challenging nature of the music. “It’s a push back against societal norms,” he says, explaining that heavy metal is a “lifestyle” that attracts people who care about social issues and equality. “It’s inclusive and non-judgemental,” Galehdar insists. “Everyone is welcome.”
When the legion of metal fans at La Kabane (which they dubbed, “Heavy Metal Burger”) kept growing, Galehdar knew they needed a better-equipped hangout. In December 2017, he moved the entire operation into the old Navarra space on Murray Street; the small, somewhat moribund space was the perfect venue for a heavy-metal restaurant. Galehdar christened it, “The Koven,” and expanded the menu to include more metal-inspired burgers, poutines and pub fare. Also a space for local and macabre artwork, it didn't take long for its diabolical character (and Galehdar’s hospitality) to start drawing in headbangers from both sides of the river and across the globe.
Against this backdrop of fall-out inspired taxidermy, a nine-foot-tall nightmarish clown and the guttural shrieks of Behemoth playing on the TV screen, Forsythe decided to take over his friend’s kitchen and stage the shoot for the following recipes for a black supper — an experiment in culinary darkness. “Colour is such an important element of any plate,” he says, “It was interesting to think about how that would work gastronomically.” The aesthetic, Forsythe says, was secondary, but the dramatics of black and near-black ingredients tend to push the palate past the familiar and into the fringes of flavour — much like the music that inspired it.
The Koven
93 Murray St., Ottawa, Ont.
thekoven.ca | 613.858.6111 | @thekovenottawa
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