“I spent most of my formative cooking years in Ottawa at various restaurants and hotels. Each kitchen and business different from the other, with their own unique hurdles and learning experiences. All of which helped me attain my first Chef job in Ottawa at Restaurant E18hteen at the Age of 25. I worked tirelessly on making my mark on the industry, this is where my proclivity for details and hard work carried me some of the way but my “team first” mentality was the instrumental factor in it all.
After being the youngest Chef in Canada to ever receive the highly coveted CAA 4 Diamond award, I wanted to continue down this arduous path of creation and soul fulfilment. After a few months of receiving the award I found myself in Toronto opening a restaurant with Ivan Reitman, Hollywood Director of Ghostbusters. An exhilarating experience that shed light on restaurant openings and how exciting they are, which in turn led to the next exciting endeavour. I was scouted to open the marble clad Aga Khan Museum. A $400 million dollar museum with several food and beverage outlets, it would be my largest undertaking to date. From kitchen design, menu design to implementation of standards it was one of the steepest learning curves of my life, but I was up for the challenge. It taught me a lot about operations, design, fluidity in said design and the importance of adhering to opening timelines. I went on to help a couple other restaurants restructure and redesign their primary functions to ones of higher output, more fluid designs and in turn higher successes both in business practice but also income.
After a string of successful openings I was scouted to return to Ottawa to help build Fairouz into the restaurant it is today. Along the way I helped a few other restaurants in Ottawa design their kitchens, build their menus and gear them for success. I found that at my core, along with being a Chef, I really enjoyed helping people fulfil their dreams of opening a business and there is no greater feeling than being part of a team who brought success and solutions to a business either new or struggling. That is why Chefs Paradise is such a tremendous platform to be a part of, I will be able to share my experience in operations, design and structuring with all those that need it and thus, create more successful stories.
Chefs Paradise has a reputation in the hospitality industry as leaders of not just equipment and competitive pricing but of thoughtfulness and of assistance, and just being there for the industry when they need their expertise. Chefs Paradise has supported every restaurant and kitchen I have built, designed or operated in Ottawa, and is known by most as an integral and vital support and auxiliary mechanism of the hospitality industry. As the 100th year of operations is ushered in, there is a tremendous message of strength in such permanence, and I’m very excited to be ushering in this new era of my life with them.”