This one’s not for the birds! Vv Magazine’s Alexandra Gill gets us the scoop on the new pecking order at PiDGiN…
A new executive chef has come home to roost at PiDGiN. Chef Shin Suzuki has been announced as the top toque for the acclaimed Vancouver restaurant.
As we told you last month, PiDGiN’s original chef Makoto Ono had flown the coop under a mysterious veil of secrecy. He’s been gone since September 13, even longer than suspected.
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“I think he just needed a break,” PiDGiN owner and general manager Brandon Grossutti explained at Monday night’s relaunch party.
The Winnipeg-born Ono had made a name for himself with restaurants in Beijing and Hong Kong before returning to Vancouver and opening PiDGiN, a modern French-Japanese fusion restaurant in the heart of Gastown.
“I think he had a hard go of it in Hong Kong,” Grossutti elaborated. “It’s a grind-you-out kind of place and I think it may have filtered over to us a bit…. The guy has an amazing work ethic and pours his soul into things. I think he just needed some time to travel and chill out a bit.”
In other words: no hard feelings.
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The process of replacing Ono, however, wasn’t so simple for a restaurant that aspires to take the negative connotations out of the word “fusion.” Grossutti says he interviewed and tested a multitude of chefs.
“We had some amazing Parisian chefs come through, but they didn’t get it. Their French technique was insane, but they were forcing the flavours. Then we had some Japanese guys working the craziest lines I’ve ever seen in my life because they’re not bound to the French brigade style. But the basics of French cuisine just were not there.
“Being able to work with both of those traditions and seamlessly meld them is the hardest part of what we try to accomplish here. Shin has the right balance of both cultures. He’s an incredibly hard-working man. He just gets what PiDGiN is supposed to be and treats it with respect.”
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The Toronto-born Shin, a man of few words who stayed in the kitchen all night, boasts an impressive resume. After training in Paris at Ferrandi Paris, the French school of culinary arts, he worked at Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée and Taillevent where he trained under the talented Chef Alain Solivérès.
In Taichung City, Taiwan, he worked up to the position of sous chef at Le Mout Restaurant, currently ranked the 26th best restaurant in Asia by the S. Pellegrino Asian Awards. Most recently, he was head chef at Vancouver’s Shirakawa restaurant.
He joined PiDGiN nearly two and half months ago and has been quietly working behind the scenes, improving the old menu and creating the new dishes that were launched this week.
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“People in Vancouver are gossip queens,” Grossutti explains about why he kept Makoto’s departure and Shin’s arrival under wraps. “They want to be the first to break something… We wanted an opportunity to reset and do things just right.”
The canapés served on Monday night, bite-sized versions of the regular menu portions, included raw scallops with dry gomae and spicy pickled radish infused with jalapeno; tuna sashimi garnished with applewood-smoked yolk puree; and tenderloin topped with crunchy tempura and oyster crema on a bed of herb jus.
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We’ll reserve professional judgment until we have an opportunity to taste the menu properly. But we think it’s fair to say that Grossutti has good reason to be “ridiculously fucking excited.”
What are your thoughts on PiDGiN’s new executive chef, Shin Suzuki? Let Vv Magazine know in the comments below or tweet us @ViewTheVibe.