Connor McQuay. Photo provided.
The NAC closed off their final week of Chef’s Table with a delectable menu created by Executive Chef Kenton Leier with Sous-Chef Connor McQuay during the weekend of July 25-27.
McQuay’s culinary journey began growing up in a family that loved food, leading him to launch his career in the kitchen by helping open the first Keg Steakhouse + Bar location in Waterloo. After graduating from culinary school in London, he arrived in Ottawa as a general assistant at the NAC’s 1 Elgin Restaurant. Deciding that he wanted to grow as a leader in the kitchen, he left the NAC to explore other opportunities such as ZaZaZa Pizza, Back Lane Café, and Mad Radish. After meeting Leier while working at the Shore Club, McQuay soon found himself back at 1 Elgin as the new sous chef a few years later, achieving his long-time goal of being a leader in the kitchen.
McQuay sat down with us to discuss his experience with the 1 Elgin kitchen and his excitement about headlining Chef’s Table this year.
Apt613: What is your favourite part of getting to help lead the team at 1 Elgin every day?
Watching the growth of the cooks around—seeing somebody come in kind of really young and unaware of what they signed up for at the beginning, and a couple months to a year down the road, seeing them flourish and take what you’ve shown them day after day, then start passing that on to the new generation coming and just seeing the young cooks grow.
I think that ties back into my wanting to teach at one point in my career, I’m still getting that opportunity here as a chef: to teach, engage, and bring my passion out with the younger cooks that come in.
Apt613: What would you say inspires your overall cooking and presentation style?
I’ve always wanted to take that home-cooked feeling to the next level—so taking what seems like a traditional menu item or home-style plate and executing it to a design or a feel of heightened execution… and using lots of different colours and flavours.
You’ll see plenty of my plates have an accent colour on them to pull your visual eye right to that dish. And then flavour wise, having a lot of different sweet, salty, acidic, heat, and all those kinds of flavours working in unison, to create one explosion of flavour when you bite into it.
At the same time here at the NAC, I’m working with a lot of chefs from across Canada as well, with our resident chef program. Working with them, taking their idea, adding a little bit of myself into there as well, to create a new thing for 1 Elgin that combines not only our style and our flair, but also incorporates the chefs’ from now, all across Canada.
Apt613: Do you have any specific chefs or restaurants that you would say you have idolized in your overall cooking and your career?
I look at Le Bernardin and the French Laundry, Eric Ripert and Thomas Keller; their refinement, attention to detail, the simplicity that ends up being on the plate, not going too heavy with too many ingredients, putting on the plate with what you want.
But at the same time, I grew up watching The Food Network as a kid–Emeril Lagasse’s Iron Chef–and just that homey feel as well. Chef Michael Smith from the East Coast, who’s got everything in his pantry no matter what you need.
I take those kinds of two visions and mould them together into my own style of home cooking with refinement.
Apt613: What was the preparation process ahead of headlining Chef’s Table?
This is my first in front of Chef’s Table. I got to write the menu and I’ve got the team executing it, so this will be the first time it’s my menu, and that’s nice.
My role here is writing a lot of the menus for 1 Elgin, working with lots of the chefs we have coming in, so it was about writing a menu that feels more like it’s me and pulling from my childhood a little bit. So starting with the first dish, using a nice cured deli meat–both my parents worked for Schneider’s growing up–so focusing around that play of melon and ham on that first dish is just a tie into my childhood and growing up with those flavours.
I’m excited that I finally get to have a little bit of a voice and people get to understand my role here at the NAC and my style and food.
Apt613: How did you feel getting to headline this event with Kenton Leier for the last weekend?
It’s always a pleasure. Working with Kenton day in and day out only makes me a better cook and chef. His calm demeanour, direction style within the kitchen and vision for food always play a part, and find their way into my style, too. We’re always growing, but having a partner like Kenton is amazing.
Apt613: Do you have any favourite or underrated Ottawa restaurants that you particularly enjoy and would recommend to anyone who came for a visit?
I’ve always liked the Indian buffet at Host India up on Montreal Road. I think they’ve been doing it for such a long time. They’ve got it down to a science and it’s a great price for as much as you can eat for lunchtime at Host India.
There are so many restaurants in the city; you find a cool little niche place walking down Elgin Street, or the Glebe, or Hintonburg on Wellington Street, you can discover there are so many new things that are popping up. Beechwood as well is another up-and-coming neighbourhood that’s got some fun spots in it.
Don’t be afraid to walk into that place and try it. Find a cool neighbourhood, walk around it, and just be open to walking in and trying something new there.
