Professional Spotlights
The Chefs of the 61st Canadian National Meeting Martin Luis Salvador, Maître Rôtisseur Executive Chef/Owner, the Beach Pea Despite his Spanish name, Martin Luis Salvador is a Nova Scotia boy through and through: his early years were divided between Nova Scotia’s South Shore and Halifax. After high school, he worked as a cook for a few years, and spent some time working in Banff, Alta, where by chance he reconnected with Sylvie MacDonald, who he had known since he was 12 years old. They renewed their friendship and eventually married. “Sylvie certainly pushed me toward getting involved in cooking more seriously,” says Martin, noting that she encouraged him to study at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Scottsdale, Arizona. Not long after, he got a job at a Michelin-starred French restaurant in Dublin, Ireland, where he developed a passion for French cooking; later, he moved to Lyon, France, where he did stints with crème de la crème chefs Jean-Paul LaCombe and Frédéric Côte. He also explored the culinary traditions of Corsica—an experience that strongly influences his cooking style today.
Jason Lynch, Maître Rôtisseur Executive Chef, Le Caveau Restaurant Born and raised on a poultry farm in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, Jason studied at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts Institute in Ottawa. Having grown up on a farm in a rural community, product and quality were always important to him. After working in Toronto and Ottawa, he was given the opportunity to move back to Nova Scotia and train with some of Canada’s most respected restaurateurs, David Barrett and Nicholas Pierce .He was part of the team at Acton’s Restaurant in Wolfville before joining Domaine de Grand Pré Winery’s Le Caveau Restaurant in 2003. In 2007 he took over as Le Caveau’s chef. He dedicated himself to working with local farmers, meat purveyors and fish mongers to build a supply chain that would be able to supply the majority of the product he would need to run his restaurants. At the forefront of the local food movement in the region, Jason sources roughly 80 percent of the restaurant’s
ingredients locally. His philosophy is Terrior, using all of the ingredients before him with in a season. Jason is also Chef at the Black Spruce Restaurant in Gros Morne National Park. 15
