LOVE STARTS IN THE KITCHEN
Couples dish on what it’s like living with a top chef
Seven years ago, Alex Verreault was working in the dining room at the popular Villeray restaurant Tapeo. There he met the woman with whom he would eventually fall in love, move in and have two children, Colette and Rosaire.
Her name: Marie-Fleur StPierre. She was — and still is — the restaurant’s star chef.
“I knew how good she was,” Verreault says.
“She’s a general in her kitchen, but she never had to play tough. She’s sweet, smart and feminine.
“It’s rare that she doesn’t wow me with her cooking. I would even go so far as to say that she seduced me with her cooking.”
Julie Assaly- Gauthier’s relationship sounds somewhat similar to Verreault’s. Assaly-Gauthier lives with chef Frédéric (Fred) St-Aubin, with whom she also has a child, Rose, and with another on the way.
They have been together eight years, having met at the private club Le 357C, where St-Aubin was executive chef before becoming chef-partner last year at the red-hot downtown restaurant Moleskine.
“There is a less seductive side to life with a chef — like the long hours, seeing him so tired, all the lost time we don’t get to spend together,” Assaly-Gauthier says.
“But his passion for gastronomy and the sensuality associated with that, and the way he wants to give me pleasure through food, makes up for a lot.
“We go to the market together, and just watching him choosing the fish or selecting the tomatoes and smelling them makes me admire him so much.”
There’s no doubt that hooking up with a chef results in many an impressive romantic dinner, and though there are challenges for these couples, ultimately the pros of sharing your life with one of the city’s top chefs appears to outweigh the cons.
Certainly, when it comes to a special day like Valentine’s, what a dream to have a chef in-house to whip up your favourite dish.
For Taline Shaldjian, the woman married to chef Michele Forgione, that dish always features lobster.
“Mike and I aren’t lovey-dovey people, but for Valentine’s Day he makes me either lobster pasta, surf and turf or lobster risotto,” Shaldjian says. “I fell in love watching him flipping risotto.
“That confidence and strength he emanates when he’s cooking … that’s sexy. I think to myself, ‘Wow, now that’s a man,’ which is funny considering he’s not lifting weights; he’s cooking.”
Shaldjian and Forgione have been together for 17 years and married for 14.
Forgione, chef/co-owner at Impasto and partner at Pizzeria Gema and Chez Tousignant, is extremely successful but there were tough times in the early years.
“When I met Mike, he was turned off by cooking,” Shaldjian says. “He had opened a business with his ex-girlfriend that failed and he was discouraged. But we would start making croissants and chocolatines together at night, delivering them to cafés in Little Italy in the morning before we went off to work. In the early days we were working morning to night for a paltry salary, but gradually things picked up.
“It’s not for everybody this life with a chef.”
The biggest drawback? The mates of all three chefs named the lack of shared family time. For Verreault and the others, the majority of childcare is their responsibility.
“Most nights I’m alone with the kids,” he says.
“Marie-Fleur works Tuesday to Saturday, 80 hours a week. There’s brunch, lunch, dinner and sometimes she does double shifts.
“I don’t know anyone who works as hard as she does. She opens the restaurant, closes the restaurant, does the ordering, makes their ready-made meals. She’s a superwoman.”
Other drawbacks of having a chef partner are less serious — and at times verge on the comical.
“When we dine out,” AssalyGauthier says, “Fred doesn’t really talk to me. He’s always checking out what’s going on around the room, commenting on anything that’s going right or wrong.”
For Shaldjian, being frank with her husband can sometimes cause tension.
“He gets upset when I don’t like his food,” she says, “or when I recommend a dish for his menu, especially if it’s something I see on Instagram.
“Every time he gets a bit uppity, I tell him, ‘You know, you’re not curing cancer.’
“But he takes my criticism seriously. He cares about what I think. When he’s starting a new menu, I’m the first there at the first service. Not that he invites me. I just say, ‘I’m coming to eat.’”
Another relationship challenge for Shaldjian is trying to get her husband to do more outside of work.
“At the end of the day, he’s always tired,” she says, “and very low key.”
Meal times can be challenging when you live with a chef, for reasons one can easily imagine.
“There’s always pressure when I’m the one doing the cooking to make something good,” Shaldjian says. “I have my signature dishes, like pâté chinois, and I make a mean lasagna.
“We both do, but mine always gets eaten first.
“Sometimes he stands in the doorway, just watching me cook, suggesting a better way to do it. And he also eats standing up, which drives me crazy. They always eat standing up in the restaurant kitchen, so it’s a tough habit for him to break.”
Verreault and Assaly-Gauthier, like Shaldjian, don’t hesitate to cook for their mates.
“I seduced Marie-Fleur with my tomato sauce and my breakfast sandwich,” says Verreault with a little laugh. “It’s made with an omelette, extra, extra bacon, strong Provolone cheese, spicy mayo and hash browns at the bottom to catch the drippings.
“I love it when we work together. We’re a team, even when she bosses me around. Nothing makes me happier.”
Assaly-Gauthier admits she is shy to cook for St-Aubin, but says he’s easy to cook for and enjoys homey food. She says she’d like him to relax and not cook when he’s off duty, but he can’t help it: “It’s stronger than he is; he really likes to cook.”
St-Aubin says: “Give me an empty fridge and I’m happy. I experiment, build plates. And when Julie cooks, I try to give her tricks, tell her not to cut corners.”
“But,” Assaly- Gauthier responds with a smile, “he’s delicate about it.”
Shaldjian, too, has benefitted greatly from her husband’s skills.
“What I learned first and foremost from Mike is the difference between something better and something not as good. He changed the way I look at food,” she says.
“He has a great influence on the kids, too. My kids, Giovanni and Massimo, eat seafood and Brussels sprouts because Daddy made it.”
The admiration and pride all of them share for their chef partners — their loves! — is palpable.
“She’s an artist,” Verreault says of St-Pierre. “She has taste. From the decor to the food, it’s spectacular.
“And she’s not by-the-book. She’s flexible, a creator. She can make great food out of nothing. Our kids love her cooking and already have adventurous palates. My daughter was eating oysters at age 5 and her favourite dish is octopus.
“I’m not fussy but I can’t think of anything Marie-Fleur makes that I don’t like. She taught me so much about food.”
Tahl is equally smitten: “I fell in love with Mike not for his cooking skills, but for the passion he has for it,” she says. “While so many people are struggling to find their passion, how could I ever get angry with him for working too hard or coming home late? Criticizing him for that? It’s just, ‘No.’”
As for St-Aubin, though he has legions of admirers in this city, there is little doubt who is his biggest fan. “Fred is a great artist who doesn’t always express himself with words,” Assaly- Gauthier says. “The way he expresses his love is through food. That’s how he shows me he loves me.”
Here are recipes, chosen by the chefs, of three meals requested most often by their loved ones.