Macau-born Steven Che is one to watch on Vancouver’s dining scene. The Chinese-Canadian chef talks about storytelling through food
- After moving to Vancouver as a child, Chinese-Canadian Steven Che worked at 3-Michelin-star Maeemo in Oslo and in Australia before opening a pizzeria
- The 30-year-old up-and-comer opens up about what he learned on his intercontinental culinary journey, his inspirations, and why he’s ‘very rooted in Vancouver’
At a recent dining pop-up in Vancouver, Canada, Chinese-Canadian chef Steven Che looked to his childhood for inspiration.
“It really is just an expression of who I am. And it’s like each dish is rooted in memory, and something I love,” Che says.
It was the 30-year-old chef’s third pop-up and most elaborate yet, and showed his desire to express himself through food.
Che came to Vancouver from Macau at the age of five with his mother and two older sisters in 1999.
He began cooking in high school, as his single mother was busy working and not good in the kitchen. His interest in cooking came from watching “bad infomercials” like those advertising former boxer George Foreman’s “grilling machine”, Che says.
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Rather than go to culinary school, Che studied dietetics and nutrition at the University of Florida, which made him realise he wasn’t interested in the clinical aspect of food, but the actual creation of it in the kitchen.
After a few restaurant jobs in Orlando, Florida, including opening fast-casual chain Domu, he decided to travel abroad and learn as much as he could.
I would say most of my inspiration is from just things I love to eat which are in Vancouver
“Working there was the most I ever learned … [It] was one of those restaurants that was like a zero-compromise kind of restaurant where they had unlimited labour, meaning they had people just lined up to work for free,” Che says of starting out as a stagiaire, or intern.
Che was thrown in at the deep end, the pastry section – which he recalls was the most difficult without experience.
“But once I got it, I was like, Oh, this is the same as cooking, essentially, except things take a certain amount of time. And you have to work around the same schedule, like breads – need to mix them, proof them, shape them then proof again, bake.
“So like that’s a schedule that you have to work around … there was no time to redo things; they had to be done properly.”
He describes the experience as challenging, but was able to prove himself, and within three months was offered a full-time job at Maaemo and worked in other stations, including garnish, meat and fish.
Aside from the culinary skills he gained, Che was inspired to create a story through food by chef-owner Esben Holmboe Bang, whose set menus featured 15 to 18 dishes highlighting Norwegian heritage and traditional ingredients.
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After his stint in Norway, Che was keen for somewhere warmer and went to Adelaide, Australia in 2019 to work at Restaurant Orana, which closed the following year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Che also had to adapt to working in a small team producing a lot of food, which led to him standardising all the recipes, thus making cooking more efficient.
“I’m one of the few chefs that would weigh absolutely everything, because a lot of chefs when they make things they pinch pinch pinch, taste taste taste. When I make things I weigh it once, and I write it down.”
Che returned to Vancouver in early 2020 just as the Covid-19 pandemic began. He worked as head chef at Scratch Kitchen in North Vancouver, which serves casual dishes such as pizza.
He was able to double sales of the restaurant through systemising and standardising operations in the kitchen, which led to him and Scratch Kitchen owner opening Wild Flour Pizza Co last April in Burnaby, a municipality east of Vancouver.
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The place serves sourdough pizzas, and Che says when it is very busy it can serve 250 pizzas a day. It offers toppings such as crispy prosciutto, butter paneer and blue pear. He competed in the Canadian Pizza Summit with that umami-laden pizza, which is covered in caramelised onions much like French onion soup.
Che is pleased to have achieved his goal of becoming the co-owner of a business at the age of 30, but has now set his sights on honing his fine-dining culinary skills again.
“I would say most of my inspiration is from just things I love to eat which are in Vancouver, like cheap Asian food and using my knowledge of technique and seasoning and flavour and infusing it with my Chinese heritage,” he says.
With more time to experiment, Che has delved into hobbies, including making ceramics, some of which were used to serve food in his pop-up.
He is constantly thinking about all aspects of the dining experience, and sees such extras as “more like customisation”.
