GOURMET GRUB: More than beef on a bun
A quartet of chefs helping train the next generation have traded summer holidays for the heat and adrenalin rush of kitchens in one of the Calgary Stampede’s premium dining venues.
Instead of taking time off this summer, Mike Dekker, Andrew Springett, Hayato Okamitsu and Steven Lepine have donned their chef jackets to bring their talent and skills — and impressive resumes — to the Lazy S, a 350-seat venue in the grandstand.
Between the four, they have worked at some of the top restaurants in the country, including Rouge, Catch Restaurant and Oyster Bar and the Wickinninish Inn.
At those establishments, a night of 80 diners was considered busy. At the Lazy S, they are feeding 700.
This is Dekker’s second year at the Lazy S, but his first as executive chef. Knowing the plan was to offer a higher level of dining to guests this year, he put together a team of three fellow SAIT instructors to help.
Dekker says having Springett, Okamitsu and Lepine in the kitchen alleviates the day-to-day pressure and gives him a chance to ensure guests are well taken care of.
“I might have the title of executive chef but, in my mind, there are four executive chefs,” he says.
Service, he says, is part of the overall experience of fine dining.
“I love to make people happy,” Dekker says. “It’s that little extra.”
Ten days in the Lazy S reconnects the chef instructors with what’s happening in the food world.
“There’s a fear of being out of contact with what’s current,” says Springett, who is enjoying his first Stampede after living in Calgary for three years.
He admits he’s never worked in a kitchen with this volume of diners, but says the menu is achievable, even if the scale is humbling.
The food they’ve served has included such dishes as poached prawn with seaweed salad, wild boar pate with garlic-onion jam and a seared yellowfin tuna carpaccio with avocado mousse.
Bringing that fine dining level of execution and service to an establishment that’s serving up to 700 people a day for 10 days straight means the four chefs have their work cut out for them. But, while the numbers are daunting, the chefs are eager to be “back in the weeds,” says Dekker. “We miss the adrenalin rush.” There will be plenty of that over the course of Stampede. They serve some 700 guests per day during the rodeo and chuckwagon races, each person dining on a seven-course meal. The decision to go with a set menu — guests have only the option to choose their main course; the rest of the dishes are set, but change daily — reflects the Stampede’s goal of elevating the cuisine in the premium seating venue.
In the fall, when the chefs are back in the SAIT kitchens, the students will benefit from the quartet’s working holiday.
Dekker says SAIT encourages the chefs to stay current in the industry.
“We can build on something to give back to the students in the fall,” says Dekker. “You know the saying, ‘Those who can’t do, teach?’ We do both.”