Jonathan enrolled at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts on Granville Island for culinary school. After graduation he got a job working for Kitchen Table Restaurants at Ask for Luigi. After a few years he moved over as the opening chef for their new concept Joe Pizza. The concept didn’t go as planned and they quickly rebranded it into De Beppe which he then ran for a few years. Through an industry friend he ended up leaving and went to work at Blue Water Café where he started at the bottom and worked his way up to Sous Chef. After 5 years he left after being head-hunted to work at Savio Volpe. He worked there for a few months replacing their previous chef. He was head-hunted again and took a job working as the opening chef of Good Thief to help out the owners who lost their opening chef. The owners were wonderful and he loved working for them. After 2 years there, he had just gotten engaged and was about to start a family. He was head-hunted by a recruiter to join the Black & Blue team because the owners loved his cooking from when they often ate at Good Thief. Eventually, he had to decide on his future in this industry and accepted the Executive Chef position at Black + Blue Steakhouse where he has been for the past 4 months.
You can follow Chef Jonathan Lee on instagram @budojoe
How or where did you develop you love for cooking and restaurants?
Jonathan’s father-owned Japanese restaurants in Vancouver and when he was younger his father would send him to the restaurant to work various jobs, he was helping and became good at it. He liked being around the food and the kitchen and eventually started cooking and decided he wanted to make a career out of it. His father’s restaurant was Kiku Sushi on Kingsway, his father eventually sold it and decided to move to Ft St John and to open another sushi restaurant, Jonathan went with him and helped him get it open. After a couple of years he decided to move back to Vancouver.
Why did you choose to go to Pica for your culinary education?
I wanted to learn French food, and other cuisines as well as Italian food.
1st dish:
Heirloom Tomatoes & Burrata
Ingredients:
grilled peaches, burrata, sliced roasted almonds, vincotto (balsamic wine reduction), green (basil oil, basil
Are you able to work with our local farms and if so which ones?
I love working with the local farmers and am happy that I can purchase from them as much as possible. Some of the farms that we have been purchasing from this summer are North Arm Farm, Cropthorne, Stony Mountain, and Klippers Organics to name a few.
2nd dish:
Roasted Chicken
Ingredients:
- Chanterelles, corn, crème fraiche, tarragon, grilled onion, pomme puree, half chicken
3rd dish:
Roasted Carrots
Ingredients:
- Crème fraiche, mushroom xo, dill
Do you have any freedom in your role to patronize any of our local farmers markets?
I do and I go by and visit them from time to time picking up ingredients that catch my eye so to speak.
In your role as Executive Chef how many staff do you oversee here in the restaurant?
The whole kitchen team is about 50 people and within that I have 3 amazing Exec Sous Chefs (1 for the roof restaurant and the other 2 for our main dining room downstairs).
4th dish:
Roasted Potatoes
Ingredients:
Tallow butter, warba potatoes, fried rosemary
Besides Black and Blue Restaurant on the main floor do you also oversee Black & Blue Roof?
Yes, I oversee all of it and it is very exciting. On the roof they serve lunch daily as well and have recently enlarged their happy hour offerings. Downstairs we are very for dinner as well as our Happy Hour in the afternoons.
Since you have been running things here have you added anything that wasn’t being done here in the past?
I started making sausages in house and now have my team making various kinds. We also make a Wagyu N’duja for our pizzas on the roof. As well we now make pate in house.
5th dish:
Japanese Wagyu Steak
Ingredients:
Japanese Wagyu Steak 4oz, salt
In your Executive Chef position here what other changes have you made?
I don’t want to make too many changes as we have many loyal guests, for the main floor restaurant I have been enhancing the dishes, adding more seasonal ingredients and adding garnishes. I have changed our sourcing a little bit and am using more local.
For the Roof restaurant, it is more casual there so we have added some salads, added a flatbread topped with Wagyu and N’duja and we have been changing some of the sides.
What are your favourite restaurants outside of where you work?
Well I go to a lot of Vietnamese restaurants and lately I have been loving Crab Hot Lau, and always Anh & Chi. I also love Chef Pin for dry hot pot in Richmond. My wife is South Indian and we eat out at many Indian restaurants, I love Amrut in downtown and we like Tandoori Flame in Surrey.
6th dish:
Roasted Figs
Ingredients:
Blue cheese, hazelnuts, vincotto, marigold syrup
(for a feature)
Do you have any hobbies?
Jujitsu (I have been doing this for over 10 years)
Family time
Server — Lisa deboned the dish tableside.
7th dish:
Dover Sole Meuniere
Ingredients:
With 2 sauces (1st sauce: Mushroom sauce with white wine and mushrooms) and (2nd sauce: Brown butter sauce with capers) (for a feature)
Do you have any favourite cities you have travelled too?
Mexico City
Bali
What are your current goals?
To improve things 1% at a time or 1% per day, that’s my intention here in the restaurant.
Is there anywhere you want to travel to next?
India
I understand you are of Korean heritage, have you been to Korea, yes several times in the past.
What are your favourite ingredients to cook with?
Mushrooms (pine, chantrelles and others)
Seafood
Ingredients I see at the farmers markets
Radicchio
Do you cook at home?
Yes
What do you like to cook at home?
90% of the food I cook is Indian food.
Do you have any guilty pleasures?
sweets and ice cream
What are your favorite seasons?
Spring time is my favourite
Fall is my 2nd favourite
What are you looking forward to in the upcoming fall season?
- We have a wine dinner here at the restaurant
- The food program
- Festive season, festive menus and then the Christmas season
Stay tuned for the next chef in the Dishing with the Chef series.
By: Richard Wolak