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Toronto’s Fressen, a trendy upscale vegan restaurant on Queen
Street West, is just as popular with meat-eaters as it is with vegetarians.
No wonder: Chef Stephen Gardner serves sophisticated, flavorful fare
that will satisfy any appetite. Dinnertime guests are treated to Mushroom
Spinach Tarts, Cornmeal-Crusted Mango Tempeh, Black Bean Corn Wraps,
and other creative entrées. The popular weekend brunch menu
features BBQ Scrambled Tofu, Sweet Corn and Vegetable Fritters, Tofu
Rancheros, Freshly Baked Muffins, and more. Find out more about this
Toronto treasure by visiting FressenRestaurant.com.
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Chef Spotlight:
Stephen Gardner
Restaurant: Fressen
Chef: Stephen Gardner
Position: Owner/Chef
Age: 37
Q. Do you have companion animals?
A. I have two cats—both female—neither of [whom] have
names. One was born in my closet and the other moved in from the streets.
Q. How long have you been a chef?
A. I’ve been cooking professionally for 18 years. I started
cooking school when I was 19 and have worked full on ever since. I owned
my first restaurant (with partners) when I was 25. Fressen (my fourth restaurant)
is my first fully vegan space (a second is on the way by Christmas) and
the first restaurant I feel like a chef in and not just a cook.
Q. What type of cuisine do you focus on?
A. Modern herbivorous—much like modern American/upscale but
more herbivorous.
Q. Do you have a personal specialty?
A. I deal mostly with fresh foods—a lot of raw foods, and lightly
cooked. I try to stay away from really heavy foods and keep the flavours
simple.
Q. What are the most important elements in cooking great vegetarian cuisine?
A. The most important element in cooking (if it’s not vegetable-based,
I don’t really consider it food) is freshness and flavour melding.
Foods need to be tasty and good for you, or you probably shouldn’t
be eating them. It’s important to try and bring flavours together.
Certain flavours work well together (like tomato sauce and soy sauce) and
others can be brought together (like tomato sauce and coconut milk being
married by lime leaves and soy)—it just takes practice and patience.
Q. What is the key to getting meat-eaters to enjoy vegetarian food?
A. Trickery.
Q. What, in your opinion, is in store for the future of plant-based cuisine?
A. I believe in the (not-so-distant) future, there will be two kinds
of cuisine—plant and synthetic. It seems that those people who are
tuned in to what food is and what food is for are moving towards a more
organic plant-based diet, while the majority are being manipulated by the
profit-based food corporations into buying and eating foods that primarily
increase the bottom line for the corporations (GMO foods, highly processed
foods with a long shelf life, highly addictive foods with lots of hidden
fats and sugars, unhealthy diets that deprive the body of essential nutrients
while keeping the consumer buying processed products, etc.).
 Q.
What are your favorite ingredients to work with?
A. I really like working with avocados and chocolate, although they tend
to make me rather hyper.
Q. In your opinion, what vegetarian dish or type of food is most frequently poorly prepared and why?
A. Pasta—because it’s such an easy food to overcook, and
people tend not to mix enough fresh vegetables in with it. People need to
look at the noodle as a base for a pasta dish rather than as the dish itself.
Q. Fun question of the day: If you were stranded on a deserted island and could only eat one kind of ethnic food, what would it be?
A. Perhaps I would like to eat grass if I had a juicer on the island.
I think it would keep me alive and healthy the longest.
Q. Do vegetarian restaurants have any special obstacles that they face versus meat-based restaurants?
A. Vegetarians are by nature very critical thinkers (which is probably
how they came to figure out what meat really is). As a group, they tend
to be pickier, want more alterations made to their food, want their food
to arrive at the table faster, and tend to question just about everything
they can. This is why we love them so.
Q. Can you give us one great cooking tip for aspiring vegetarian chefs?
A. The best tip I could give someone who wants to learn is to get
a great teacher. One can learn so much more, so much faster, from someone
well skilled than from someone poorly skilled or from a book—that
doesn’t mean you need to go to school necessarily, but one should
try to work with the best that they can. It’s not the information
that you need to learn, it’s more the attitude towards the food.
Q. What are some ... ingredients you recommend that vegetarians and
vegans should have in their kitchen for cooking?
A. Accents—whether they are flavoured oils, vinegars, nice salts,
good spices, liquors, etc. … it’s important to have them of
decent quality.
Q. Are there any newer vegetarian products on the market that you are particularly fond of?
A. I don’t much care for processed foods. One should eat real
whole foods as much as possible and at least one raw meal a day—a
big salad is great! As processed as I get is tofu, occasionally, and sometimes
chocolate.
Q. Can you give us some tips on how to prepare tofu?
A. I find that Western people tend to enjoy their soy foods a little salty
and not too mushy. Most [soy foods] like to be marinated before cooking
to increase the flavor; otherwise we tend to find them bland. For those
who don’t know tofu very well, you should buy a firm tofu. I’ve
met a lot of people whose first experience with tofu was with the fresh,
very soft Chinese style—not a texture appreciated as much in the West.
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Chef: Scot Jones
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