3. Chef Jamie MacAulay

 

3. Chef Jamie MacAulay

Chef Jamie MacAulay has been cooking professionally for over 20 years and is most recently known for his ramen pop-ups and teaching at NSCC. Those who know Jamie personally, know his attention to detail, appreciation, and respect for the history of the cuisine he prepares.

Prior to Jamie focusing on cooking as a professional career, he worked at chain restaurants while studying graphic arts. The arts were an outlet for his creativity, however, he struggled to sit still in the program and yearned for the atmosphere of the kitchen. It came to the point where he needed to make a choice, so he decided to drop out of school and pursue cooking full time.

“To me, food was able to be my creative outlet. It is creative in almost five dimensions. Being able create something that actively affects people became addictive to me. You get to see feedback immediately. You see it on peoples’ faces or if you go and talk to them, whether it is customers or just for friends and family. Once you start down that path, you begin chasing it. You find out a lot about yourself and you have this big need to just to please people and this immense pleasure to give people.”

Jamie decided to move to BC when he was 19 with two goals in mind: to learn to snowboard and to cook. He worked part time at Vancouver Community College (VCC) as an Instructors Assistant (IA) and asked around town where he could learn to cook until he was pointed in the direction of Bernard Casavant. What Jamie didn’t know at the time was Chef Casavant was one of the first Certified Chef de Cuisine’s (CCCs) in Canada and the second chef to represent Canada in the Bocuse d’Or Competition in France. Jamie admittedly is glad he didn’t know a lot about Chef Bernard at the time, or he likely wouldn’t have been so confident walking into his restaurant with a resume.

“I ended up just walking into his restaurant at the right time. His nephew and fellow chef, Lee Cooper, happened to be starting a new position in Kelowna under Rod Butters. The day when I walked in was Lee’s last day and there was nobody to replace him. It’s crazy, because I ended up working for Chef Bernard for the next 5 to 6 years and he pushed me in the direction I wanted to go in cooking”.

Jamie worked with Chef Bernard until he sold his restaurant in Whistler to take over the Sonora room at the Burrowing Owl Winery in Osoyoos, where Jamie ended up following him. After some time, Chef Bernard encouraged him to gain hotel experience to keep progressing his career. With a little help from Chef Bernard, Jamie was able to join the kitchen at the Fairmont Vancouver where many chef instructors from VCC worked, including Bruno Marti and JC Felicella, who wrote the textbooks on cooking taught at the college.

“I thoroughly enjoyed working at the Fairmont. While working here, Jean George came to town to open the Shangri-La hotel kitchen. Our whole kitchen, including the sous-chef who I was close with, Wayne Harris, wanted to leave to work for Jean George. Wayne ended up going to Shangri-La and later called me to let me know he had created a position just for me as the butcher in the hotel. Wayne emphasized that Jean George is a 3-Michelin star chef, so, I couldn’t say no. So, after some convincing, that’s what I did.”

While working for Jean George, who is credited for creating fusion cuisine, Jamie began to see Asian influence in food and began to understand how to properly cook ramen, learning traditional Japanese techniques. Unfortunately, Jamie’s stepmother and grandmother fell ill while working at Shangri-La, so he decided to return to the East Coast to be close to family.

“My stepmother was getting sick, and my grandmother was also sick. I made the decision to quit my job and drive back home, so I packed up everything and I came back in 2011. I luckily had a friend, Dennis, who offered me a sous-chef position at his restaurant Fid Resto. When I was there, I just couldn’t stop babbling on about ramen and what I had learned. Dennis previously had ramen on his menu and was excited by the idea of bringing it back, so we went for it”.

Dennis taught Jamie a lot more about ramen based on his past experiences perfecting it at Fid. Inspired by Dennis and Jean George, Jamie was driven to open is own ramen shop in Halifax, Water and Bone. This restaurant unfortunately closed due to COVID just as it was hitting its stride. With ramen still a love of Jamie’s, he then decided to start creating ramen kits under his own banner, which eventually developed into Coda Ramen. Coda Ramen had a physical space at the beginning, but due to challenges with COVID and personal life, Jamie decided to shut the physical space down and focus it specially on pop-up events, which he continues implementing to this day.

“The whole idea behind ramen is that it is different in each region of Japan. It is the only cuisine in Japan that's not strict in its preparation. There are the five basic elements behind it: tare, broth, noodles, toppings, and aroma oil. Other than that, it changes in each region. There are regions in Japan that are pork heavy, so they will do pork broth. There's garlic ramen in parts where garlic is in. There's Tokyo where soy sauce is abundant and brewed so shoyu ramen is the main one there. There's sea salt shio ramen closer to ocean places. There's corn in ramen that comes from Okinawa because American soldiers introduced corn to the locals, who started using it in their ramen.”

When I decided to make ramen here in Nova Scotia, I wanted to use what was available in our region. We have an abundance of seaweed that's high in glutamate that I wanted to use  for dashi. I wanted to make it with capelins and North Atlantic small fish and things like this instead of importing, so that it tastes of the region.  I use what is available to make a traditional bowl of ramen but from what's available here, so it tastes like Nova Scotia.”

Jamie’s passion for cooking and respect for the cuisine he creates is truly inspiring and is brought to life in his ramen. Be sure to check out his upcoming Coda Ramen pop-ups this summer.

P.S. Jamie also works full-time at NSCC teaching first year culinary skills and second year culinary management. He is also credited with opening Drift in the Queen’s Marque, where many of his students at NSCC have gone on to work.