ARTICLE ON UP AND COMERS GETS COMEUPPANCEThis month
Vancouver Magazine features a “
Chefs to Watch” article, but outside an opening paragraph that raises some interesting points about the chefs’ common history, the article’s basic premise is well covered territory.
The magazine could have proposed some controversial candidates, or forced us to notice those we have been guilty of overlooking. But like
Vancouver Magazine so often does, once again, it was one dance step too far behind.
Here we blame the editor for a lack of overview, not the writer. Anyone who knows who
Bishop,
Feenie and
Hawksworth are will already be well acquainted with the chefs the magazine chose to feature, and anyone who doesn’t recognize these three star names is unlikely to read the article.
Perhaps it just needed a more accurate title.
There is simply no question that the talent chefs who are highlighted (
Angus An,
Jean-Christophe Poirier,
Jeremie Bastien,
Koji Zenimaru,
Marc-Andre Choquette ) are worthy of praise and notice. But they are hardly new up-and-comers. All of them have been referred to constantly on local food/restaurant-related blogs, websites, print publications, radio shows, etc., over the past few years and they have the miles of press releases to show for it. In fact, with Feenie changing tack, and Hawksworth in a holding pattern, these chefs could safely be called our top working chefs of today, not tomorrow.
We would have liked to have seen the magazine stick their neck out and place a bet on some of the new young contenders coming up under the radar. (Sorry, but
Melissa Craig and
Quang Dang have already arrived, and are not exactly waiting in the wings for someone to notice them.)
We’ll take one now and state that Chef
Karen Gin is one we have our eye on. Karen has just taken over the kitchens of
Zin restaurant in the
Pacific Palisades Hotel, and if we are not wrong, we think it must be her first Executive Chef position. Hiring her was a smart move on the part of the head office honchos.
We first spotted Karen years ago when we were a judge at the
Dubrulle Black Box Competition and she was a competing junior sous chef working out of the
Hotel Vancouver.
Despite the expectations of a number of young cockeriels in the competition who were certain they were destined to win, or were measuring themselves up against some other overly confident fellow, it was Karen, the only female in the competition, working quietly and with a smooth efficiency in the corner of the kitchen who scored the crystal Rosenthal Star with her simply elegant but precise platings.
At the awards presentation, a surprised Karen was teary-eyed. The young bucks clearly looked pissed off.
Since that time, Karen has worked alongside some excellent mentors at the Hotel Vancouver and
Diva at the Met, and thus her skills can only have improved. In fact, we noticed that at a recent Black Box competition she was doing a little mentoring herself.
The sticker is, Karen Gin still seems to be the quiet, unassuming person she was in her younger days, so we’re hoping that the Pacific Palisades will give her the platform and the backup that she needs to get her light out from under that bushel. Those might be one set of press releases that we won’t want to pull all the excess superlatives out of.
Back to
Vancouver Magazine … to their credit, the editors have also featured
a profile on Jurgen Gothe penned by
John Burns, and that is one tribute that should definitely not be missed. Jurgen is a long time trouper on the food and wine scene, a natural blogger who was born too early for the genre, and someone who genuinely loves food and wine .. not just loves to talk about it.
Be sure to read that one.
