Chef Scot Woods takes comfort food to culinary heights
TORONTO, May 20 (Reuters Life!) - Scot Woods is not the kind of chef to let ego interfere with his career.
In between jobs at some of the most coveted restaurants in North America, including Toronto's Avalon, Woods apprenticed to learn more about every technique from molecular gastronomy at Chicago's Alinea to slicing sashimi at Sushi Kaji Restaurant and cutting up carcasses at The Healthy Butcher in Toronto.
After leaving his first role as executive chef of Habitat last year, Woods, 34, has incorporated his varied repertoire of skills at his globally inspired new restaurant.
The menu at Lucien, named best new restaurant of 2008 by Toronto Life magazine, transforms classic comfort foods into complex creations such as Japanese bincho grilled octopus with homemade chorizo and potato foam, French onion soup with duck gizzards and foie gras, and Southern fried chicken cooked sous-vide with a buttermilk-and-cornflake crust.
Woods spoke to Reuters about his influences, upbringing and love of "offal" ingredients.
Q: How would you define your style?
A: "I think it's sort of establishing what modern Toronto food is. If you ask me to define that I think, it's obviously geographically based. I sort of sought out those who tended to have the best techniques, very solid techniques, and ground myself that way and that allows me to draw culturally either from different ingredients or different techniques from different cultures. So in terms of modern Toronto, it's definitely grounded in French technique with a lot of cultural influence."
Q: Is it hard to find certain ingredients in Toronto? Continued...
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