Cooking the Books - An Interview With Student Chef Richard Kano

A One Minute Interview with ...
Richard Kano – student at The Art Institute of Vancouver


Even David Hawksworth, Rob Feenie, and this year's "Chef of the Year", Scott Jaeger, had to start somewhere on the road to becoming a top-rated chef. For most chefs that launching point began at a certified culinary training institute. A top school for young wanna-be chefs in our city is the Art Institute of Vancouver. Each year they not only enroll students from BC and the rest of Canada but also young hopefuls from all over the world. We talked to one of their international students, Richard Kano, and asked him how the fantasy of becoming a chef is living up to the reality.



What were you doing before you decided to train to become a chef?
I am only 18 so I don’t have any work experience. I graduated from high school and moved here from Mexico two years ago.

What made you decide on Vancouver?
It’s a beautiful city and there is so much opportunity here. Because Vancouver is multi-cultural, it opens doors to everyone and you can meet people from all over the world.
(My mum is American, my dad is Japanese and I was born in Mexico. (I speak Spanish, English, and a smattering of French.) And everyone is more ‘open’ here than the U.S.
When I was in Mexico, I had the chance to home-stay in Canada and I chose to live with a Canadian-Philippine family here.

How did you decide on a culinary career?
The culinary school came as a surprise. I was just planning on doing a short cooking course here at the school after high school but I loved it so much I enrolled in the full 18- month program. I've wanted to be a cook since I was a kid. I went to my cousin’s graduation from the CIA and cooking is a tradition in my family – many are chefs.

What do you hope to get from the course of studies in which you are enrolled?
Basic knowledge and the good repertoire of people I have met -– it has been a very good networking opportunity. And it will help me to get a good apprenticeship.

How challenging is the course – especially as it is not conducted in your first language?
I didn’t expect to learn about safety and sanitation, e.g microbes and bacteria. I didn’t think it would be so in-depth and I thought I would have more kitchen time. It was a smack in the face to see how many lecture classes I had, but they are very useful even though I don’t like sitting down and listening.

Do you feel like there is enough hands-on kitchen time?
Yeah. I only have one actual cooking class at the moment – 5 hours a day, twice a week, but in the next quarter that time will triple.

How often do you get yelled at by the instructors?
Not that often. When I was helping out in the restaurant part of our school I opened the oven door before the soufflés were done – chef David yelled about that but nothing really nasty. I won’t do that again.

What are your fellow students like?
There are some I like and some I don’t. Some of them don’t really want to be there – they had romantic ideas about being a chef and they didn’t expect the workload to be so heavy. They end up slacking off and that bothers me a lot. I have to clean up after them and so do my other classmates that work hard – we make sure their stuff doesn’t burn so it is doubling the work load for some of us.

How many in the class?
22. It would be better if there were less

What’s been your biggest mistake so far?
Adding sugar instead of salt to the soup.

Could have been worse, like the other way around.
I’ve done worse. Back home I used to volunteer at this restaurant and we had an opening day function – it was a very special occasion. I made exact numbers of cherry tarts for dessert. While I was carrying the tray to serve them, I slipped and ruined all of them – no survivors. My boss’s face was awestruck – there was no dessert.

Ever thought twice about your decision to become a chef?
No, never. Sometimes I question my ability, but then I realize I have to work harder and learn more.

We hear that you volunteered to worth with Thomas Haas.
He has never yelled at me. I think I have done a good job so far. I want to be a culinary chef but for now I am getting the best of both worlds, learning with the chefs at school and learning pastry and chocolates with Thomas.

Where would you like to apprentice after you graduate?
With my uncle – he is the biggest role model of chefdom that I have. He works for the Four Seasons Hotel in Costa Rica and it is a tradition in our family to apprentice with him for one year. I would also love to work for a restaurant that makes its own pasta and sauces but I haven’t found one yet.

Would you come back and work here in Vancouver?
Definitely. I would probably shoot high. In our fourth quarter at the Arts Institute we have to work in an operating restaurant and we get to choose our practicum. I would like to go to the Four Seasons Hotel here in Vancouver or a high-end Italian restaurant, not sure which one.

Has the training experience lived up to your expectations of what being a chef is like?
You don’t study to be a chef, you become a chef. When a cook walks in a door, you know he is a cook, but when a chef walks in, you know by the way he carries himself – there’s an aura of confidence, he or she knows how to lead and gets things moving in one second. And I hope that will describe me some day.