Vancouver Chefs Dish on Their Biggest Kitchen Disasters

Combine the accurate platitude that "everyone makes mistakes" with the high chaos potential of busy restaurant kitchens, and you’ve got the perfect foraging grounds for disaster stories. We can only imagine the slip-ups, misunderstandings and terrifying-in-the-moment-but-hilarious-later slapstick incidents that occur behind the scenes of our nice dinners out, so we asked seven local chefs to dish their wackiest first-hand gaffs. Herein, Vancouver’s culinary talent at the total opposite of their finest:

Merri Schwartz, East Van Roasters (@EastVanRoasters): My very first day of work as pastry chef of a hotel, we were hosting a wedding. I had just gotten settled at my station when the father of the bride came stumbling into the kitchen clutching a huge cake box. He was speaking in one-word sentences. "Cake." "Brakes." "Ruined." He was on his way to deliver the cake and had to slam on the brakes … smashing the entire back-side of the three-tier cake in the process! The bride would be arriving shortly,  so I whipped up a batch of buttercream and proceeded to rebuild an entire cake out of icing. Someone ran to the market to get some flowers. We liberally piled them on, turned the icing side to the wall, and the bride never knew the difference.

Trevor Bird, Fable (@fablekitchen): One night we were entirely full, from opening on. I was working the pass and, since we have an open-concept kitchen, I greet everybody as they enter. At one point three pregnant woman walked in from separate tables. I said, "Whoa, one, two, three pregnant women, CONGRATULATIONS!" The last woman stopped and turned around with a fear-my-wrath look in her eyes and said sternly, "I am not pregnant." I could hear an echo of all my cooks thinking, "I’m happy I’m not Trevor right now … "

Jackie Ellis, Beaucoup Bakery (@BeaucoupBakery): While I was studying pastries in Paris I was putting a lot of effort into learning French and bullying my way into the language out of necessity. (Keep in mind that I got a C- in high-school French, as I did not think I would ever need the language.) There was a particularly hot and sunny day and I kept remarking how hot I was and, subsequently, being confused as to why no one was responding or agreeing. My instructor was finally polite enough to take me aside and explain that “Je suis chaud” didn’t translate into “I’m hot” but, instead, into “I’m in heat.” I still laugh about that one.

Jonathan Chovancek, Café Medina (@CafeMedina): When I was a young apprentice at The Aerie Resort—a four-diamond Relais et Chateaux on Vancouver Island (RIP)—I was boiling two pots of cream for pastry. The chef was 6’9" tall and had built all the shelves in the kitchen very high. I am quite short. As I attempted to rest one pot of boiling cream on the shelf and retrieve the other as it rapidly rose, I inadvertently knocked the first pot from its high spot and took if full in the face. I became known as "The Lobster," as I had burns on my eyes and face and was red for weeks.

Meeru Dhalwala, Vij’s, Rangouli (@Vijs_restaurant): I had hired one of my first dishwashers over the phone. The guy didn’t speak English that well and, come opening night, it turned out he hadn’t been applying for work but, rather, had called on behalf of his his wife, who showed up dressed to the nines in open-toe, silver, super-spiky high-heel sandals, a satin pink "butterfly shirt" with shiny rhinestones and tight satin pink pants; zero English but 100% smile. Her husband and three kids came with her all dressed up to celebrate her very first job in the country. I panicked, but had no other option and couldn’t just turn her away. When she saw the dish pit, she took off her sandals and washed dishes barefoot till past midnight. She kicked butt, and now is the one employee I have who can today work every single kitchen position.

Reuben Major, Belgard Kitchen (@BelgardKitchen): Back when I was the chef at Earls Hornby I was in the middle of a week-long store visit with my superiors (never the most fun, being critiqued for five days straight!) when, three minutes before lunch service, one of my sous chefs rammed his rack and roll into the pin that triggers the fire suppression system. Suppressant sprayed all over the cooking line, ruining all of the food and forcing us to shut down for the day (costing us over $10K in sales). I had to clean the whole kitchen, re-prep all the food and have the health board come in and give us a fresh stamp before we could re-open. The kicker? This was all on my 30th birthday.

Brad Miller, The Red Wagon and Bistro Wagon Rouge (@WagonRouge_): It was our very first weekend brunch service at The Red Wagon—we served 180 guests between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. that Saturday. We were brand-spanking new and it was supposed to be our "soft" opening week. Our bills were handwritten and we had a person washing dishes but no machine. We ran out of everything. The special was gone in the first hour, we were cooking home-fries to order and the cooks were waiting on pans to cook with and plates to serve on. You name it; we were out of it, making it to order or waiting for it. It was the real-life equivalent of a kitchen nightmare. Now, those numbers are no sweat. 

Compiled by Adrienne Matei