FH1117

ICONS & INNOVATORS
company like that, would respond
to whatever chefs really want,
it’s a very simple answer. But the
most work that’s been done, in
the last 20-odd years I’ve been
paying attention, has been largely
through education. Changing
people’s mindset about the value
of food, supporting local economies,
getting over the barrier
that, yes, it’s more expensive. It’s
more expensive because we have
a wonderful social contract in
this country that demands we
Kennedy with Sarah
Middleton and Jay
Jackson of Windows
by Jamie Kennedy in
Niagara Falls, Ont.
pay people fairly for their work.
Which leads us to the philosophy
behind slow food, for example,
which is about good, clean and
fair — ‘fair’ meaning all the
things we almost take for granted
living in Canada.
RC: Are we where we want to
be with Canadian cuisine?
JK: The age-old question is
what is Canadian cuisine? This
is something I’ve been asked
forever and now I respond by
saying Canadian cuisine is a
cuisine of the regions of Canada,
like the vastness of the country,
geographically, coast to coast to
coast. We’re a country that represents
the world now, in addition
to our Indigenous peoples who
have a food culture to offer to
the mix as well. So, to define it is
like trying to tie down this beast.
For me, it’s about celebrating
taste of place. That’s how I would
describe Canadian cuisine —
practice it coast to coast; get
away from the homogenization of
food culture.
RC: You had a great run with
Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar and it
was a really popular destination.
Unfortunately, the restaurant had
financial issues. Can you speak
to that?
JK: The Wine Bar — that whole
era for me — was a cautionary
tale for an entrepreneur. Because
of the critical success of the Wine
Bar, I felt I could do anything,
and you start to believe in your
own hype a little bit. That’s a very
dangerous thing and it caused us,
at that time, to expand beyond
our capacity.
I made a decision to build
a commissary kitchen, Gilead,
because we were starting a catering
business in addition to the
Wine Bar and were going back
into the Gardiner Museum as
an exclusive caterer. It was in an
exciting, new building that was
getting accolades for its architectural
design. We were being billed
as the exclusive caterer there and
this gave us the confidence to
invest in Gilead. However, what
we didn’t plan for was the additional
cost to the company to run
a commissary kitchen — let alone
pay for the expansion or the
build-out of that space — and we
didn’t build enough capacity into
that space once it was going.
Plainly said, we didn’t create
enough business for ourselves.
Because we were so exposed with
the number of staff we had hired
and additional costs every way
conceivable, we got into trouble
very quickly.
In addition to that, our ability
to broker the interest we had
in catered events at the Gardiner
was not good. We didn’t staff our
front office enough to take the
calls; we were missing meetings
and we got a reputation very
quickly. It hurt us badly, enough
so that, in the end, I had to sell
the Wine Bar, which was the jewel
in the crown of the company, in
order to address debt.
It was a very tough time of my
career. But I insisted that we not
declare bankruptcy — that was
a route we could have gone but
I felt an allegiance to all of the
suppliers around me that I owed
money to, that I wasn’t going to
let them down. That became our
MO for the next 10 years. And,
quite honestly, there still remains
some of that difficult financial
ROGER YIP [ICONS & INNOVATORS EVENT]
38 FOODSERVICE AND HOSPITALITY NOVEMBER 2017 FOODSERVICEANDHOSPITALITY.COM