For some, choosing a career path can be a long, winding road with many detours. For others, like Brianne Nash, the choice was an easy one. Her decision to leave school and embark on a cooking career was a cinch. “I really wanted to get out,” she says, smiling. “I was more of a hands-on person, not so much a books person. I was always good at sewing, drama and cooking; always very hands-on,” she adds, affirming her choice of a creative culinary career.
The young, energetic chef, who grew up in Ontario, supervises a brigade of 10 and calls her style of cooking “fresh, homemade and seasonal.” The 70-seat Mississauga, Ont.-based Saucy, where she’s head chef, offers pan-seared potato-crusted pickerel with lemon ($24), bacon and blue-cheese-crusted beef tenderloin with 40-hour jus, ($30) and seafood spaghettini ($20). “We have a little of everything; I like to try and venture into different foods, Thai, Mediter-ranean … we do features every day, so this is a good place to build new dishes by trying out ideas.”
An extensive traveller, Nash’s many treks almost belie her 23 years — she’s been to Switzerland, France, Germany, Spain, Greece, Amsterdam and Belgium — and craves different food experiences wherever she goes. “I stayed in a chateau in Strasbourg, France, where they grew their own vegetables; we made our dinner from the garden; it was amazing.” Several hundred miles south is where Spanish food made a big impression on the chef. “In Barcelona, I was impressed by the way they eat in Spain. You’d be walking at 10 in the evening, and everyone is eating dinner,” she says. “Everyone goes out and enjoys a nice dinner — and lunch is huge there. That’s when they have a big meal — they all stop, sit down and have some wine, some sangria and eat and talk and relax.”
Come September, the Humber College honours graduate will return to Spain, only this time on someone else’s dime. Winner of the CRFA Show’s Discovered Culinary competition, she’s headed to Casa Gerardo in Asturias for a 15-day stage with chef Marcos Moran. “I’d never competed before and never even thought of it — I never thought that I’d win. It’s going to be a huge learning curve; there are so many foods they work with that we don’t. I’m beyond thrilled,” says the stagiaire.
Here at home, Nash looks to Chuck Hughes’ cuisine for inspiration. “I love Chuck Hughes,” she gushes. “I really like his style of cooking, it’s so rustic — just like his restaurant. His whole approach is rustic. When I ate at his restaurant everything was so delicious and different. I had a beef cheek on a waffle topped with foie gras. So cool and so different.”
In the future, she’d like to take her infectious gusto to more established restaurants. “I’d like to work under some big names. I’d really like to learn from those chefs and take in different types of cuisine.” Then, “one day,” she adds, “I’d like my own place, something small and quaint with a daily printed menu.”
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