The Culinary Arts at the NAC
Nelson Borges remembers it well. When the veteran chef and food services executive turned around the kitchen at the National Arts Centre, making it profitable, the late president and CEO Peter Herrndorf told him he wanted to take the profits and invest them back into the arts.
“He wanted us to return the restaurant to being the incubator of culinary talent in the city once again,” Borges recalls Herndorff, who died in 2023, telling him. “That’s what our goal was.”
And that’s when the idea of a resident chef program was born.
“We have a stage, and I kept telling everyone culinary is an artform,” Borges says, “so we’re trying to bring emerging culinary artists and provide them with a national stage where they can perform their art and create different activities and experiences that involve them to give them a little step forward.”
The program, which launched in 2019, invites participating chefs to come to the capital for about five days at the beginning of the residency. During that time, they participate in a series of events, including at least one big meal, public-facing cooking demos and afternoon artists’ chats. The resident chef is also put before as many media outlets as possible and allowed to shape the menu at 1 Elgin for nearly 10 weeks. The visiting chef provides the recipes to the team at 1 Elgin and then collaborates on what the final plates look and taste like.
“Some of them don’t have fine dining, so we elevate their dishes,” says 1 Elgin executive chef Kenton Leier. We work out the menus ahead of time, and we’re usually launching them in the restaurant when they arrive.”
The chefs invited in 2024 have lots of connections to Ottawa as it turns out. There was a Montreal-based chef who has family in Ottawa, then two chefs from Prince Edward County and a final chef from Ottawa, who actually works as the sous-chef at1 Elgin, but will take the spotlight in September.
A Haitian shares his heritage
The year kicked off with Paul Toussaint, a Montreal-based chef who moved to Canada from Jacmel, Haiti. Toussaint has three restaurants in Montreal: Kamúy, Americas BBQ, his eponymous food stall at TimeOut Market and Aux Quatiers Belle Gueule. Toussaint’s coincidental Ottawa connection is that when he emigrated to Canada at 20, he moved to Ottawa and spent three years here before moving to Montreal to study the culinary arts. His father, brothers and sisters still live in Ottawa as does an uncle who was influential in his life.
“My uncle and his wife used to bring me to the National Arts Centre to see some shows,” he says. “So I was so happy when it was me ‘performing’ [by making dinner.] It’s one of the best experiences I ever had,” Toussaint says of the program. “They respect culinary as an art. A lot of the time we feel like we’re just making something to eat, but they respected my culture, my food, my plating. It was very kind of them to give me this experience.”
He says the experience has changed the way he approaches food. He now pays a lot more attention to plating, for example, and he knows it’s opening doors for him. Post-residency, the “Centre des Sciences Montréal” reached out to him to ask if he would produce a dish for a display it’s currently curating on food’s tastes and smells.
“It will be a photograph in the exhibit, but if a visitor wants to eat it, they can come to my restaurant,” Toussaint says.
The big meal he hosted, which included a wine pairing, was a great opportunity to share his soul food and his Haitian culture.
“You have the chance to talk to the crowd directly,” Toussaint says. “You talk to them and share your culture. I was able to explain the process and why we cook that way. It was a good chance to express myself and showcase my work. I’ve done other events, even for the James Beard Foundation, but this was so good and the team was so professional. Everything was perfect.”
When it comes to his menu, he says the team at 1 Elgin worked hard to source his authentic ingredients so everything would be exactly as he wanted it.
A Prince Edward Co. veteran
“It’s an interesting concept to think of having food that will be on [1 Elgin’s] menu for a few months,” says chef Amanda Ray, executive chef at the Drake Devonshire in Prince Edward County, about the program. “It was pretty awesome just to be asked. It was an amazing opportunity for me to showcase what we’re doing at the Devonshire because people come from Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto to Prince Edward County.”
Ray has worked in some of the best restaurants in Canada, including Canoe and Biff’s Bistro in Toronto and Bar George in Montreal. She also spent time in Provence, France, where she cooked rustic Provencal cuisine and taught at a culinary school at a Relais & Châteaux property.
She says the menu she came up with for her residency at the NAC was designed to showcase the kind of food she does at the Devonshire. “Just things that are local and fresh was the whole drive,” she says, adding that the experience reminded her of the days when she used to do massive events.
“You have to be super organized,” she says. “When you’re doing an event for 250, it’s different than cooking for an à la carte service. But just getting a chance to work with chefs Kenton, Connor and Chris made everything so seamless.
She says making those connections and talking about shared experiences was fun, and sometimes it was a way to see things differently.
For her big event, Ray fed the Ladies Who Lunch on International Women’s Day.
“The event was really inspiring,” she says. “Catherine [Landry], who puts it on, picked some incredible women to speak, and after the luncheon, it was cool to see people from all aspects of different industries who’ve broken through the glass ceiling and do what they do so well.
Indigenous cuisine at 1 Elgin
Chef Chris Commandant will start his residency in September. His Ottawa connection? He lives here and is actually the sous chef at 1 Elgin. Commandant is Kanien’keha:ka of the Wahta Mohawks First Nations community, just outside Bala, Ont.,which is about 200 kilometres north of Toronto, although his family originally came from Oka.
Commandant can speak about the residency from the point of view of the team at 1 Elgin and also in anticipation of his upcoming gig.
“It’s a unique experience to see it from my side and then to see it from the other side,” he says, adding that he knows what the chefs at 1 Elgin most appreciate getting from resident chefs in terms of detailed instructions and ingredient sourcing.
Commandant says he chose to work at the NAC because it gives him the freedom to work with Indigenous ingredients and there’s a lot of respect for the ingredients and ways of doing things. He also gives a lot of talks about Indigenous food security and sovereignty.
“As one of the resident chefs this fall, I’m trying to remain as authentic to our [Indigenous] flavours and through our available ingredients and techniques as possible,” he says. “So I want to make sure we’re going about it in the proper way. There’s a philosophy in Mohawk — “one bowl, one spoon.” The idea was to take what you need to sustain yourself and leave something for someone else. I’ve tried to do that in my day-to-day career and in writing my menu.”
Commandant’s residency will include two events, partly to showcase the Indigenous cuisine about which he’s so passionate because there’s a growing demand for it across the country. For example, last year’s Restaurants Canada showcase had a few tables dedicated to Indigenous cuisine. This year, it has an entire pavilion.
“It’s an honour,” he says, adding that he was very excited when the announcement about his residency was made public. “Once the cat was out of the bag, I’m telling you, I’ve never felt more proud, honoured and respected.”
A helpful program
Also on this year’s roster for July and August is Leah Marshall Hannon, executive chef at Stella’s Eatery in Waupoos, Prince Edward County. Marshall Hannon’s great-grandmother is her main culinary inspiration. She raised her family on the shores of the Pickerel River. The community had just one general store, which meant foraging became a way of life.
Stella’s Eatery, named after her great-grandmother Stella Pamajewon Marshall, is home to casual fine dining and features dishes such as country-fried rabbit, bannock taco and seared rainbow trout. While Marshall Hannon never met her great-grandmother, who was Ojibway, she feels she’s always with her, maybe more so as Marshall Hannon’s middle name is Stella.
“She lives on through my dad and aunties,” she says. “I’ve learned a lot of cooking from my mother’s side, too — she’s Irish, Scottish and English. [Stella’s] is very family-oriented and family-inspired.”
Hannon studied at George Brown College and worked at the now-closed Delux and at Midfield Wine Bar in Toronto, where she moved to the county to learn about foraging, farming and sustainability and open her own place.
During her residency, Hannon will do three nights’ worth of dinners as part of the Chef’s Table series for the Festival of Small Halls on July 11, 12 and 13.
“I was thrilled,” Hannon Marshall says of being invited to be a resident chef. “I’ve only been [to the NAC] a couple of times, but the venue is spectacular, and I really enjoyed the food. I[am] honoured and thrilled and a little trepidatious.”
She plans to incorporate her Indigenous heritage and love of foraging into her NAC menu as much as possible. “Summer is one of my favourite seasons for writing menus,” Hannon Marshall says.
As Hannon Marshall eagerly anticipates her experience, Toussaint summed up his.
“I would tell the NAC to continue this program because it helps a lot of chefs to showcase what they love.”
1 Elgin Restaurant
1 Elgin St, Ottawa, Ont.
nac-cna.ca/en/1elgin | 613.594.5127 | @nac-cna
