2013 Independent Chef of the Year: Justin Leboe

Calgary’s culinary landscape has undergone a host of changes in the last few years,  slowly evolving from a meat-and-potatoes capital to a culinary mecca commandeered by a growing brigade of young, innovative chefs.

One such innovator is Justin Leboe, a 40-year-old chef and restaurateur who landed in Cowtown in 2007, eventually reimagining comfort food at Model Milk, authentic Neapolitan-style pizza at Double Zero, funky gastro pub-inspired cuisine at the National beer hall and responsibly sourced patties at Clive Burger. And, the list continues to grow, as the chef continues to add more concepts, broadening his influence across the city.

Leboe grew up on a small farm in White Rock, B.C., where he inadvertently learned a critical business lesson from his father. “When I was a kid, I used to go to work with my dad,” recalls the chef whose father worked as an air-traffic-controller; it meant the elder Leboe and his co-workers had to make precise decisions quickly. “[Because of that], I’m always able to think on my feet.”

So, there was no mistake: the aspiring chef — who began his culinary career at the age of 13 washing dishes at Umberto Menghi’s in Vancouver — knew what he wanted and it wasn’t a culinary school education. Instead, the rising star landed externships at Daniel in New York City and the French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., which set the stage for work at C Restaurant in Vancouver, Accolade in Toronto and The Inn at Little Washington in Washington, Va., to name a few. Eventually, he became executive chef at the Waterloo House in Hamilton, Bermuda. By 2007, Leboe was ready for a place to call his own. He moved to Calgary where he had the opportunity to open a fine-dining restaurant called Rush. Spurred by his rigorous training, he introduced a menu inspired by molecular gastronomy and cooked many of his dishes sous vide. “We played a game of balancing traditional with pushing the envelope as much as possible,” says the chef, who sourced milk-fed pork for his menu, an expensive feat, which dazzled diners who enjoyed the meat’s rich taste.

The toque has always carved out his niche. “[Justin] has become a pioneer of the ever-evolving food landscape of Calgary,” says Lee Parsons, executive chef of Bacchus Restaurant, inside The Wedgewood Hotel & Spa, Vancouver. He describes his former sous chef as focused, driven and always looking to enhance his knowledge.

True to form, Leboe soon introduced a new innovative project after leaving his post at Rush, in favour of launching a restaurant that better reflected his personality. In 2011, he opened Model Milk, an intimate dinner party-inspired concept featuring upscale comfort food, made with fresh, local ingredients. These days, dishes include foie gras parfait with smoked maple, pickled beets, and milk bread ($18). “I spent 20 years in fine-dining restaurants cooking for my ego, and this restaurant is a departure from that,” he says, of the award-winning establishment, while hinting about another concept slated to open in the same building next year.

Leboe incites curiosity with every new restaurant adventure. “For me, it goes back to playing with things in their natural state,” he says, offering an example. “There’s a local dairy that we buy buttermilk from that has no resemblance to commercial buttermilk. [So now] we play around and cook everything in buttermilk to see what it tastes like.” Such an example shows how the chef’s style has evolved from complicated molecular gastronomy techniques to basic dishes cooked well. “I appreciate there’s a movement back to where things are as natural as they can be, as opposed to seeing everything turned into a gel or an air,” he says. Recently, he’s been fascinated by cooking over live fire grills using coals, wood and charcoal. “It changes the flavour and skill, attention and technique needed when you’re leaning over a fire,” he explains.

In little more than a year, Leboe has helped launch three new concepts, ranging from casual pizza and gastro-pub cuisine, to better-for-you burgers. In between, he’s also been adding new units. Besides manning the kitchen at Model Milk, he’s been planning a second location this year for the authentic Neapolitan pizzeria he launched in 2011 in partnership with the Concorde Group, a Calgary-based entertainment company in which he serves as VP. Inspired to create more pizza options downtown, the duo opened Double Zero Pizza, which features authentic, Neapolitan-style pizza, made with “00-grade” flour (and a secret pizza-dough recipe that took eight years to perfect, based on a sampling of Neapolitan pizza on every continent).

The toque has also been in charge of menu development at National, a growing Calgary-based beer hall that opened last year with Concorde. It features contemporary gastro-pub cuisine such as lobster poutine with butter-poached lobster, creamy shellfish gravy and fresh curds ($16) and house-brewed lager. A third unit is already in the works.

But there’s more — Leboe’s new burger joint, Clive Burger, which opened last year, is inspired by the simple tastes of Fairfax, Va.’s Five Guys Burgers and Fries, California’s In N Out and Manhattan’s Shake Shack — with an eco-friendly twist. “We were just kicking around ideas about doing a burger joint, but where we really wanted to make the business model our own was with all-natural Alberta beef and local products when we can,” he says. Made with antibiotic- and hormone-free Alberta beef, and topped with locally sourced toppings, Clive burgers are served in packaging that transforms into topsoil in six weeks. And, with a second location already in the works, Leboe is eager to open more units in Calgary and possibly outside the city with Concorde Group. “We have plans to expand the brand as big as we can, however, we are going to take it slow and open the first three or four ourselves and make sure the model is viable in different demographic neighbourhoods,” he explains.

It’s been a busy year, but Leboe and the city of Calgary were forced to slow down in June when the community fell victim to catastrophic flooding that temporarily left 75,000 of its residents homeless. While Leboe’s restaurants weren’t adversely affected by the flooding, he is still raising money for relief today by cooking pizzas for volunteers and hosting barbecue events; to date, he’s raised more than $15,000 for Red Cross. But, aside from helping with flood relief, the chef also serves as a spokesperson for Grow Calgary, which was founded by committed citizens who aim to grow up to 100,000 pounds of food for the local food bank. Back at Model Milk, the entrepreneur hosts “Plate Swap” dinners, where chefs across Canada congregate to whip up variations of each other’s recipes, while raising money for various charities.

And Leboe is always focused on developing talent at his restaurants. “It’s [finding] those people who want to [cook] — who can’t think of doing anything else,” he says. It’s the same passion about food that was once summed up on a chalkboard inside the Model Milk kitchen, which read ‘what do you want to eat today?’ as opposed to ‘what do you want to cook today?’ “The first satisfies your belly and the second satisfies your ego,” says the chef. For Leboe, the former wins, every time.

photo by Colin Way