Toronto Chef Jonathan Williams journey from washing dishes to helming a Park Hyatt restaurant

Trading stories around one's beginnings in cookery is an inevitability when chatting with a chef. During the course of a conversation, other memories surface, and you’re both off to the races with a more informal and personal discussion.

Chef Jonathan Williams of Joni restaurant in Toronto’s Park Hyatt hotel caught the kitchen bug when he was 16. Now, 20 years later, he is the executive chef at Joni, bringing modern sensibilities and his love of Japanese fermentation to his celebrated menu.

Ottawans attending this weekend's Canada’s Great Kitchen Party will have the opportunity to indulge in one of his signature dishes and meet the man himself. More on that later.

We traded stories of our beginnings, and his response to the experiences of restaurant kitchens was a little different from my own. I’d found one particular environment so openly hostile, it was evident that this was not the life for me.

“Things can get chaotic in kitchens”, he said, “but that chaos leads to order, which then gives diners pleasure. 

“I started off washing dishes and making sandwiches at a restaurant in New Market and despite the angry shouting, I loved the fast-paced environment. What I’ve found is that hospitality attracts genuinely nice people.”

In another job at Moxie’s, he’d been rising through the ranks when he decided that he wanted to learn to “cook real food from scratch” and enrolled in the culinary management program at Niagara College. It was there that he met Carl Heinrich.

Heinrich was an expert butcher well well-versed in charcuterie, and had won season two of Top Chef Canada. With his own interest in charcuterie, Williams was keen to work with Heinrich and recalled his “interview” with him.

“It was at a Tragically Hip concert in Fort York. I cleaned the deep fryers and we cooked thousands of burgers and I got to listen to the band. It was one of the best work days ever.”

When Heinrich opened Richmond Station in Toronto in 2012, he brought Williams on as his sous chef.

Eager to gather international experience, he moved to England for three years, where he worked at the two Michelin-starred The Clove Club and Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner. 

For me, Heston Blumenthal is the only chef of the last century that I would consider a genius. There have been many great chefs over the decades but not Rene Redzepi, Ferran Adria or Grant Achatz, as remarkable as their talents are, has the uncommon mind of Blumenthal.

To his credit, Jonathan Williams has made efforts to offer a credible take on Heston Blumenthal's famous fish and chips at Joni.  Blumenthal invented the triple cooking of fries (now widely accepted as the singular expression of this dish) and I had the pleasure of having this at Blumenthal's The Perfectionist Café at Heathrow. I’ve never had better. On the next Toronto visit, I’ll be sure to indulge.

I asked him what so many Canadians have sometimes asked themselves what defines Canadian cuisine? Butter tarts, poutine, Nanaimo bars and tourtiere often come to mind but his answer was as simple and logical as it gets “local and seasonal”. To that end Williams has partnered his restaurant with the 100 Km Food Initiative, which brings local food producers and restaurants together. Good for the environment, good for farmers and even better for patrons.

With an expert background in charcuterie, his competition dish this weekend will feature a beef short rib pastrami with horseradish cream, rye crumble, and a "very good carrot". The preparation of the carrot sounded elaborate but in short involves cooking and rehydrating organic carrots in carrot juice, then glazing them with a reduction of carrot juice seasoned with ice wine vinegar for a sweet and sour flavor that mimics barbecue sauce.

It’s this level of meticulousness and technique that most of us lucky consumers never really think about. We pop these attractive morsels into our mouths, seldom contemplating everything that went into their creation.

Like all accomplished chefs, Jonathan Williams has had a long culinary journey, one of education and experiences that has culminated in giving voice to his unique expression in the kitchen. 

For some people, great food is sometimes described as a “religious experience”. If there’s even a modicum of truth to that, perhaps the next bites we take are also an act of communion.