Chefs of the Kawarthas - Chef Brian Henry

By Karen Irvine Reprinting for our

One Year Anniversary and Chef Brian is AWESOME!

Chef Brian Henry

photo by Karen Irvine

I sat down with Chef Brian Henry at his new restaurant, Angle Iron Kitchen, in Lakefield.

I heard that Brian was a Deadhead and, of course, that intrigued me. A Deadhead is a hard core fan who shadows the band, The Grateful Dead, selling tie-dyes and beads. But in Brian’s case, it was selling pizza.

Brian elaborated, “I had a restaurant, I was in my early 20’s, and it was pretty stressful. I was probably in a little bit over my head for my age at the time, and the stress got to me. So I tagged out on the restaurant, bought a school bus, started traveling around, and before I knew it I was following The Grateful Dead on tour across the States selling pizzas out of a big old schoolbus.” He did this for a few years.

Brian continued, “And then the bus broke down, so I hitchhiked down to Mexico. I was in Tijuana for awhile.”

Ok, so now you get why I am so intrigued by Brian. We continued the interview.

“I travelled further into Baja to Agua Caliente and Santiago, and spent a lot of time learning proper Mexican cuisine from the villagers. The Village Elder, Oscar, would send his son to get supplies for me. I would get these beautiful wheels of cheese. One day Oscar sent me with his son, and I exchanged items with the cheese maker and he taught me how to make the cheese. That’s also how I learned to make Mexican cuisine. It was a lot of fun. We were doing a lot of adobe style cooking using the large clay ovens. It was a great experience. I spent my spare

time making leather things and would walk up and down the beaches selling it to tourists. I did that on and off for a year or so.”

Chef Brian has worked in the Caribbean, Bahamas, the Gulf Islands and Turks & Cacos.

Brian and his father got involved in a project getting medical equipment and supplies to a nursing home in Belize. The building was in dire need of a new roof, so they did a fund raiser called “Raising the Roof”. They ended up building such a great roof that the facility became a hurricane refuge and still is to this day.

So what was Brian like as a child? “I was raised by my father, and we ate out quite a bit. So I spent a lot of time

in kitchens as a kid. In grade one, I would make breakfast for my father, and I would make him an invoice to get money.”

“I bought a bus and followed The Grateful Dead for a few years selling pizzas.”

Brian was being groomed by his father to take over the family jewelry store, but it wasn’t what Brian wanted to do. While in Grade 5 for a Geography project, he presented a 3-course Chinese cuisine lunch for the class. At the age of 13, Brian’s father got him a summer job at Deerhurst Resort working in the kitchen. “Cooking was just happening”, says Chef Brian. “It was always very easy for me, and I was able to see peoples reactions – how they enjoyed food that I created. Growing up alone with my dad, cooking helped create a sense of family and gathering around the table.”

Brian has lived in Lakefield for the past 17 years. He worked at a couple of resorts seasonally. Elemental Embrace, a private spa was where Chef Brian got noticed. There were a lot of celebrities and media people there and his career took off. Brian has owned 4 restaurants around the country. He opened his first kitchen in the Kawarthas with the Angle Iron Kitchen Food Truck at Youngs Point and is now in Lakefield. Chef Brian prefers to call it a kitchen. He says, “The party always ends up in the kitchen, so there are lunches in a kitchen with seating and a place to pick up premade meals on one side. It’s a small, quaint little space and is the production kitchen for our retail product lines for Spice Co. and Fully Baked”. Chef Brian also hosts cooking classes. As for the food at this kitchen, menus change and rotate. He covers different cuisines including culture and presentation styles. Another use for the space is his catering. If you want a private cooking class, Brian will come to you.

In addition to this incredibly busy life, he also does Emergency Food Services work for evacuated Indigenous communities from the Reserves in Northern Canada during disasters – forest fires, floods, social services and emergencies. Kapuskasing is the host community and where he sets up. In five years he has served 1.5 million meals.

Chef Brian is a renowned food writer having written

200 or more publications for Rogers and The Peterborough Examiner as well as teaching cuisine at Durham College.

Brian is a fourth generation Chef. He has been with his wife for 18 years and has 4 children. Kira Maya, 23, who cooks and enjoys it. Sequoia River, 22, is an absolutely mad cook but doesn’t enjoy it so much. Rasi Shai, 9, loves cooking and bakes with Brian and his wife but she wants to be a vet. His youngest child, Eliza Blue, 7, loves to help out in the kitchen but prefers to eat and satisfy her sweet tooth.

If I had just one word to sum up Chef Brian Henry, it would be ‘fearless’. He has lived his life around the world doing whatever he wants to do and enjoying life to the fullest. A must stop at 15 Charlotte Street in Lakefield.

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