The Cellar Door Issue 47: Grenache

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.

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