4 minute read
Chef Profile:
Chef Emily Butcher: Nola
Photos by Ian McCausland
Growing up in the Fraser Valley outside of Vancouver, Chef Emily Butcher was surrounded by food: gardening and salmon fishing with her parents; cooking with her father; her Mom’s family owned a butcher shop in Vancouver’s Chinatown; her grandmother was a private cook in China and then a private school cook in Canada; and her great-aunt owned a diner. One might think that cooking was an obvious path. But life isn’t linear, and Emily took her studies very seriously. A classically trained dancer and pianist, she studied music at UBC. Then, an open interview at Local Public Eatery (she applied to be a part-time hostess) led her down a culinary path when the Executive Chef asked if she might prefer a spot in the kitchen. She finished her degree in music and went to culinary school. After rising to the challenge of working at West Restaurant and Bar, a fine dining restaurant on South Granville with an impressive lineage of chefs, she moved to Winnipeg and connected with Chef Mandel Hitzer at deer + almond. After seven years at deer + almond (during which she was chosen to compete in both Top Chef Canada and the Canadian Culinary Championship), Emily was approached by Mike Del Buono to open a new Burnley Place Hospitality concept in St. Boniface called Nola.
How do you approach your menu at Nola?
I do well with structure, but all these things that I do also have a creative angle. What’s the meaning? Is there a story? What am I trying to convey? When I found cooking, I was searching for my favourite medium to do that. A lot of the menu is very nostalgic to me. It’s food memories from growing up. It’s my favourite ingredients that mean certain things to me. It also is informed a lot by the seasons here and what’s available in Winnipeg.
Do you have a secret ingredient?
I’m crazy about yuzu kosho. It’s a Japanese fermented chili paste with citrus. We’re trying to make our own because it’s expensive to order it from Vancouver (though I did find it at Young’s once!).
What would you be doing if you weren’t a chef?
I worked with some children’s choirs when I was going to university, so if I had followed music, I probably would have worked with a youth nonprofit. Or I would be working in the fashion world—I almost went to fashion school.
What is your favourite cookbook?
State Bird Provisions is an old one that I go back to. They do Californian cuisine, but they do it dim sum-style with cart service. My dream is to go visit them. And Mister Jiu’s in Chinatown is upscale Chinese food. It’s all of these dishes that my grandma used to make, but with a twist.
What is your favourite food destination?
Vietnam was one of my favourite places to travel and eat. And I was really lucky to work in Norway for a couple of weeks. It was really interesting cooking in a similar climate but from a different perspective. I was in a restaurant in Bergen, where they worked closely with local purveyors and fishers. They got everything from one farm, and they worked around what these people had to offer.
Do you have a guilty pleasure?
Shoes and vintage dresses. Vantage Vintage is where I go on my day off.
Where do you eat in the city on your day off?
Clementine, Oxbow, and deer + almond.
If you could cook for anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?
Julia Child. She’s my icon. She was bigger than life, doing everything that people said she couldn’t do.
