In the Kitchen with Dave Smart of N.S.’s Tempest Restaurant

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According to Dave Smart, there are similarities between plating a tasting menu at his restaurant and designing underwater acoustic technology. “The kitchen is like an elaborate manufacturing environment,” says the 44-year-old engineer-turned-executive chef and owner of Front & Central Restaurant in Wolfville, N.S.

Although Smart spent his formative years in Dartmouth, N.S., learning culinary skills by prepping dinner every night for the family and watching cooking shows on Sunday afternoons, he pursued a degree in mechanical engineering at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He subsequently spent the next two decades as an engineer and project manager. “I really loved the creative side of it,” Smart recalls. “But, interestingly enough, when I was in that part of my career, my thought process was always geared towards what I was going to make for supper.”

A pivotal moment came in 2007 after Smart’s marriage ended. It was then he abandoned the nine-to-five drudge to take on contract work and fill his free time with his culinary pursuits. After a friend urged him to pursue formal training, he enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa; soon after he landed a staging opportunity at the ARC Lounge in Ottawa with executive chef Jason Duffy.

In 2011, while Smart was visiting family in Nova Scotia, he met Michael Howell, chef and owner of Tempest Restaurant in Wolfville, N.S. After a short stage, Smart accepted a job at Tempest as chef de cuisine. But, within a few months, Howell, who was looking for his replacement, had a chat with the chef. “He said, ‘I know eventually you want to have your own place, and you’re not getting any younger. You’ve got the resources, maturity, drive, passion and education,’” Smart recalls. So, the two inked a deal and Smart became owner and executive chef in August 2012.

These days, the 60-seat restaurant has a new name and culinary repertoire that spotlights contemporary Canadian cuisine with local and seasonal fare. Since opening Front & Central Restaurant, Smart has revamped the decor and introduced a small-plates presentation. “I’ve always been enamoured with tasting menus and having fun with your food,” he says, of the menu, which features scallops, topped with pea purée, chanterelle mushrooms, pickled pearl onions, chamomile, nasturtium and crispy prosciutto ($14) as well as duck breast with Hakurei turnip, granola, apple purée and micro daikon radish greens ($13), complemented by a Nova Scotia-based wine list.

It’s a whole new world, but you can’t take the engineer out of the chef. Smart still jots down mathematical equations on a whiteboard that prove the ideal way of cooking a certain item, and he experiments cooking different meats with his immersion circulator. But, the toque pays tribute to his predecessor by staying true to the Tempest chef’s food philosophy. “As far as local and seasonal and supporting [farmers] literally two minutes down the road — that hasn’t changed. That I inherited from Michael, and we have a similar ethos that way,” says the chef. He adds: “I’m still trying to find my own voice in a lot of ways.”

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