Coffee with Jeffrey Downs | Recovering from the Gastronomy Olympics

Before sitting down, Jeffrey Downs rolls up his large leather case which contains his precious knives. If they had an Aeroplan card, they would have quite a few points in the bank. For 18 years, they have followed the Canadian chef on his travels around the world. Montreal is just a stopover.

I took advantage of his short stay in town to suggest that he have a coffee at Sabayon, the new restaurant of chef Patrice Demers and sommelier Marie-Josée Beaudoin, in Pointe-Saint-Charles. The three met at the late Les 400 Coups restaurant in Old Montreal, when Jeffrey Downs was at the start of his culinary journey.

This winter, he sat down in his friends’ den to prepare three sold-out, seven-course gourmet meals as part of the Montréal en Lumière festival. “I admire this couple. There aren’t many really nice people in the restaurant world and these are one of them,” says the guest chef.

What was on the menu concocted by four hands? Sea urchins accompanied by scallops from the Magdalen Islands, Koshihikari rice porridge enhanced with poached oysters and dill sabayon, halibut served with savagnin sauce, duck with wild caraway, a Sumo mandarin sorbet, a cocoa arlette and sweet treats.

My meeting with Jeffrey Downs comes at a pivotal moment for the British Columbia-born chef. He has just announced his departure from Holt, the restaurant he opened in Taipei with partners in the middle of a pandemic and for which he obtained a Michelin star in 2022.

The award is the holy grail of gastronomy for many, awarded to the crème de la crème of chefs in the cities where the guide Michelin decides to invest. Note that Montreal is not part of the lot. “I was always looking for something, but it wasn’t a Michelin star. It’s a nice mark of recognition, it was great for me, but it wasn’t my goal, he said. My quest is to perform at a high level and have the freedom to do what I want,” he says. Today, he has offers from all corners of the world. Spoiled for choice.

At the time of our meeting, he was wondering what his next project would be, his next base, where he could unfurl his knife case after catching his breath.

The 39-year-old chef doesn’t have coffee during the interview. He has been fueled by caffeine for a long time, but now says he is in withdrawal.

I have the distinct impression of having before me an Olympic athlete who, now that he has the medal around his neck, looks to the future with a certain dizziness. With some perspective.

Sacrifices. This is a word that comes up repeatedly in the mouth of Jeffrey Downs, who, as a teenager, dreamed more of basketball – for which he has the perfect physique – than of haute cuisine. “When I wasn’t on the basketball court, I was watching the Food Network,” he says.

It was at the Fuel restaurant in Vancouver, where he made his culinary debut, that his passion for haute cuisine was born. “It was never my ambition to make super refined or pretentious cuisine. Fuel was a fine dining restaurant. I liked what they were preparing and I wanted to learn,” he recounts today.

Learn and travel.

Montreal was one of his first stops. Working hard, he saved enough money to pay for his first internship at a high-end restaurant, Manresa, in Los Gatos, California. During his tenure, Manresa had two Michelin stars. “I worked two years to pay for a one-month internship during which I worked for free,” he says.

It was just the beginning. To grow in the kitchen, to climb the ladder, he repeatedly agreed to incur large expenses to offer his labor for free. Or to work for next to nothing in the most awarded restaurants in the world. In Japan, France, Australia, Belgium.

He estimates he left $100,000 on the table in unpaid hours.

When it was his turn to take the reins of the Holt kitchen, he did not want to reproduce the old model of which he is the product, even if he recognizes certain virtues in it. “I became good because I had tight deadlines to meet. I learned to deal with a ton of pressure. Now it makes my stomach turn to think about it. But if I’m successful today, it’s because I had a hard time yesterday. The gastronomy has been elevated to an incredible level thanks to all this work. However, I wonder if this can continue. I don’t want to work like that anymore. I don’t want to treat people the way I was treated. There is too much abuse and harassment in this environment. »

This questioning is in tune with the times. “With the pandemic, there was an awareness. People value their time more. And it’s not just the younger generation. “It’s also true for my generation, which was used to giving up everything to achieve excellence,” he says.

These days, Jeffrey Downs is interested in the different models emerging in the restaurant industry. And Montreal has just given him ideas. He notably had a meal at Mastard, by chef Simon Mathys, formerly of the Manitoba restaurant. The establishment on rue Bélanger, which only serves five-course dinners, is closed on Saturdays and Sundays. The Sabayon restaurant, where he spent three evenings in the kitchen, is only run by the couple who own it. The Demers-Beaudoin tandem sells tickets online for its tasting menus and for some French tea services. Tickets sell out every month in just a few minutes.

“Many chefs have been forced to adapt after the pandemic, in particular because it is difficult to find labor, even in the best restaurants in the world. But we see that customers are open to new proposals. »

I’ll be curious to see what Jeffrey Downs’s will be.

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