1. Chef Greg Malcolm

 

1.      Chef Greg Malcolm

Growing up, Greg’s mother was a single mom with four kids who owned a restaurant next to his grade school. This is where his love of cooking took shape. His earliest memories of food were the classic beef dip sandwiches with au jus his mother used to make him. The elegance of such a simple dish remains with him to this day. Greg began working in the kitchen at his mother’s restaurant when he was 15 while she would manage the front of house.

“The kitchen is what I fell into, but then it became something I craved”.

Greg later entered business school, but realized he missed the camaraderie and structured chaos found in a kitchen. He transferred to George Brown College for culinary school, leading to a few opportunities, though, his career began to take off when he moved to Edmonton and started working under two great chefs: Nathan Bye, the youngest chef to win gold medal plates, and Shane Chartrand, one of the top indigenous chefs in western Canada. Greg worked very closely with Chef Shane in particular, who was a huge influence on him.

“Chef Shane brought humility and values from his indigenous background into his cooking and philosophy behind food. I took this to heart. I don’t enjoy the arrogant side of the industry. People could do well with a bit more humility in their lives.”

Though he was learning a lot, Greg admits the industry began to weigh on him. He was overworking and struggling with addiction. He knew he needed a change and wanted to return to the east coast where he was born. When he finally did, he continued working in the restaurant industry but brought his struggles with him. He finally reached a tipping point.

“I had to take a look at my life and refocus. I took two years off of work, really looked at my life, worked on myself, and got sober”.

Greg worked a few jobs on and off, but realized he needed food in his life. He knew he needed to find a restaurant with his new look on life and his passion for food.

“I love sharing food with people, and teaching people, and seeing people get excited about food. That is what I really crave”.

When Greg heard about Sip Bar and Fare, he was very interested in meeting with the owners to discuss their thoughts on their kitchen and overall vision. He met with them, and they hit it off immediately. Sip Bar and Fare has a live-fire kitchen, which Greg had never worked in before, but loved the idea of learning a new skill and taking on the challenge. Greg explained he was very adaptable and had great ideas for the menu.

Through trial and error, Greg has since homed in on his craft, leveraging the open-fire kitchen to perfect the menu.

“When developing the menu, I thought back to a book I had read [the Little Book of Lykke], where the author was in search of the happiest people on the planet. The commonality he found was that people are the happiest when they’re sharing food. I knew I had to incorporate this into the menu and create a family-style, shared menu. It’s all meant to share, bring people together, and have a great time”.

Greg noted in past kitchen’s he had been screamed and thrown food at by chefs, so he really wanted to build a kitchen to get away from that culture.

“We have a very inclusive kitchen here. We're in Dartmouth. We want to be part of this community, so that has to translate into our team, so that can translate into the dining room, and into the guest experience. Our kitchen is in the middle of the restaurant. We are in the middle of the dining room. We need to be having fun, we need to be passionate, and the customers need to see that. It's taking a little bit, but the team we have is a really tight team, really passionate, and we all have a great time cooking. The cooks talk with guests as they walk by. They thank us each day. It’s exactly what I hoped for with our family-style service.”

As a final thought, Greg spoke to his passion in great depth, noting that his passion for food is what brought him here and that passion is what allowed him to work incredibly hard to make it through the struggles he encountered throughout his life. He is very happy that the staff at Sip Bar and Fare carry that same passion and love what they do, which makes their customer’s experience that much better.