Larkin Chef: Ross Larkin, Newfoundland’s New Face of Cuisine: His Story Ross Larkin will be the chef de cuisine when he takes over the kitchen at Raymonds, the most recognized restaurant in our province, if not the country. Even more impressive is his victory in Top Chef Canada, which no other local chef has ever accomplished. Larkin was not your typical child prodigy in the kitchen. Despite growing up in a restaurant family, Larkin had little interest in pursuing a profession in the Foodservice industry as a child.
Larkin’s family owned a fish and chip restaurant on Merrymeeting Road, he told the Herald. This is where I was born and raised. Since I was six years old, my grandfather and I have been peeling potatoes and buttered fresh bread. I used to take it for granted when I was younger, but as I got older, I detested it. Because my family operated a restaurant and I didn’t want to be a chef, cooking was never something I wanted to do.
In other words, he’s the chef de cuisine at Raymonds, our province’s, if not the country’s, most well-known restaurant. That’s impressive enough, but he also recently won a television competition called Top Chef Canada, which pits some of Canada’s best chefs against each other in a series of grueling cooking challenges. Strong skin, toughened nerves, and the ability to cook like Nan are unrivaled. In Newfoundland, we confront a unique mix of challenges in obtaining fresh, healthy food at reasonable pricing.
We import 90% of our products, and we’ve lost touch with the skills and traditions that previously allowed us to be more self-sufficient in obtaining delicious and healthful meals by hunting, foraging, gardening, and canning. 84 percent of our villages do not have access to a full-service grocery shop because we are a predominantly rural society (and instead rely on limited food from convenience stores). There is a way back for us in the United States, as Larkin shows in the episode. Larkin defeated some of the best athletes in the country.
Newfoundland’s Cuisine and Culture
When it came down to it, Larkin had the confidence to let the ingredients speak for themselves in a refined, restrained meal, such as the partridge he served with pitcher plant sauce. It was a pleasure to watch him defeat some of the country’s best chefs. His cod dish was encircled by a beurre blanc of sea urchin.
His dessert consisted of snowberries and roasted parsnip chips. In 2018, he received the Best Cook in Country award for his sophisticated, forward-thinking, and uniquely Newfoundland cuisine. The judges couldn’t always discern what they were eating, even when they were given “cod sounds” (the swim bladder that keeps fish buoyant). When the judges asked him about his last three meals, he described them as “a salute to Newfoundland.”
The Victory of Larkin is a wonderful lesson in the art of Victory
In the Netherlands, there is a strong sense of self-sufficiency and food sovereignty. When you have Larkin’s understanding of what’s available on our island and his ability to prepare it, embracing locals in today’s bizarrely globalized food system is more than just a lesson in doing so. “It’s more essential to be attentive to what you have than what you lack,” Larkin says when it comes to wine. “Newfoundland is still a relatively new province,” he says, but it is “old” in that “we have a feeling of our history and heritage.”
“I eat foods that I grew up with, and I utilize foods that I grew up with.” Some of my earliest childhood memories include hunting with my father, berry picking with my grandma, and sitting at the kitchen table eating pan-fried capelin with fresh bread and mustard pickles. This dish contains no exotic ingredients. At the same time, it’s local, fresh, organic, and wonderful. He’s at the moment “going back and recalling that and elevating it.”
Larkin’s Stubbornness to Compromise his Food
Larkin’s stubbornness to compromise his food philosophy gets him into trouble on the show, but he eventually wins. “It definitely emphasized staying faithful to who you are and what you know,” he says of the experience. “It reinforced not changing that because you’re under pressure or for the judges,” he continues. While it may appear to be a time-consuming process, “you have to establish discipline when you’re a novice cook and want to put everything on one platter,” says the author. I concur with him. When it comes to reality cooking competitions like Top Chef and Masterchef, the most common mistake chefs make is trying too hard, resulting in dishes that appear amazing on paper but taste bad when eaten.
from Greensleeves Dishwashing to an Adventure-Filled Life
To Assist Raymond in the kitchen
When I was a kid, peeling potatoes and butter toast at Henry’s, my family’s restaurant on Merrymeeting Road, was a tradition for me. Larkin claims, “That restaurant was my boyhood home.” He used to do odd jobs around town when he was younger, such as washing dishes at Greensleeves. When a cook failed to show up, he jumped at the chance to fill in. Nonetheless, it was merely a profession that allowed him to travel and work around the country. He went snowboarding in British Columbia and ended up working in a ski resort kitchen. “It worked well for a while, but eventually I realized it wasn’t what I needed.”
At a modest French Bistro named Bistro Pastis, the first kitchen job I had where they actually cared about the foods and commodities they were getting in opened my eyes to what food can be, so I started reading more about food and learning from everyone I worked with. Incredibly, he ended up working in Saskatoon under Dale MacKay, the first winner of Top Chef Canada. Celeste Mah, Larkin’s pastry chef wife, works in the food industry as well. When Celeste and Jeremy Charles were both working in Saskatoon, Jeremy Charles, the pastry chef at Raymond’s, called her.
He inquired as if she was interested in working there. “I immediately went outside and asked Jeremy if there were any other options available, and he said yeah, of course,” Larkin remembered. He chuckles, “I’m at Raymond’s because my wife was employed, not me.” He started at the bottom four years ago and is now the Chef de Cuisine. His swift rise to the top will come as no surprise to those who are familiar with the show.
“We Eat It All” is a place where you can eat whatever you want
Larkin was given free liberty to prepare a three-course dish using any ingredients he wanted on the last episode of Top Chef. Given that he ordered it from home, he received more than he anticipated. Last week, Larkin’s Sous Chef and Side Kick, Jeremy Charles, showed up to compete in the final round. Larkin was really taken aback by this.
They told us in the previous episode that we could order whatever we wanted to cook. I dialed two telephone numbers. Please give one to my wife and one to Jeremy. I asked them to send me as much Newfoundland bounty as they could, and Jeremy surprised me by showing up with both himself and his bounty. All of my worries and stress vanished the instant I saw Jeremy enter the room. Whether we won or lost, Jeremy and I were going to have a great day.” At Larkin’s request, amuse bouches such as moose heart tartare and whelk skewers were served. On air, Larkin and Charles quipped, “We eat it everything in Newfoundland.”
We should, too, based on Larkin’s big cash-money triumph. He’s worked in restaurants all throughout the country, from his grandfather’s restaurant on Merrymeeting Road (Henry’s) to fishing lodges in Southern Ontario, ski lodges on Vancouver Island, and even a restaurant operated by Top Chef Canada winner Dale MacKay. Traditional Newfoundland cuisine stunned the country’s culinary elite on Top Chef Canada this summer, and it is traditional Newfoundland cuisine that he is drawn to.
