Leslie Steh’s love of baking began at the tender age of 10 in the kitchen of her home in Winnipeg. “My first memory was my obsession with ChipIts,” she laughs. “I used to try to perfect the [cookie] recipe with half shortening, half butter or all butter, all shortening.” She’d even try altering the cooking times. “I would drive my mom crazy,” she recalls. Eventually the novice mastered the recipe, and her obsession with baking was born.
Her fascination with the craft carried on into adulthood. As a science major at the University of Manitoba, Steh gravitated towards bakeshop sweets after classes but never considered a career in the pastry arts. A turning point came at 26, when she found herself in a banking job she hated. “I didn’t want to do it, so eventually I took the plunge,” she says. She quit and applied to Ottawa’s Le Cordon Bleu. Within two years, the aspiring toque had finished the program in London, England and staged at restaurants inside Claridge’s, a luxury hotel. Returning to Toronto in 2000, she landed her first job as a pastry cook at Biff’s Bistro. Since then, Steh has honed her skills at numerous Toronto restaurants and bakeries, including Senses Restaurant at the SoHo Metropolitan Hotel, Ma Maison and SIR Corp’s signature division of restaurant, including Far Niente and Petit Four Bakery.
And, being part of a husband-and-wife culinary team that spans the savoury and sweet has only helped expand Steh’s culinary knowledge. The pastry chef and her chef husband, Michael, have worked together at several restaurants, including Splendido in Toronto. “It’s always challenging to work with your partner, but at the same time it’s rewarding, and you can push each other in ways you might not [outside] such an intimate relationship. You can cross those boundaries,” she says.
This year, Steh crossed into the world of luxury hotels, assuming the role of executive pastry chef at Stock Restaurant Bar & Lounge inside the Trump International Hotel & Tower Toronto, where she commandeered The Chocolate Lab. During her time at Trump, she worked in a temperature-controlled workshop with Valrhona — a French luxury chocolate.
But, if that wasn’t inspiration enough, Steh also sources ideas while travelling — from French bakeries in Japan to fine-dining restaurants in New York City. “Six years ago it was all about fine-dining and all the little details, and now it’s comfort food with refined techniques,” she says of the dessert trends reflected in her recent creations, which include treats such as caramel crunch doughnuts, made with Tahitian vanilla cream, hazelnut ganache and white chocolate coffee cremeux. “What I like to focus on is great flavour combinations,” she says. “I want it to be something that’s simple but well-executed. I’m not always into the tiny little additions that don’t have a place on the dish.”
What she is into is her new job crafting dessert menus at Toronto’s Chase Hospitality Group, where she’s returning home to the challenges and joys of working with her husband.
