Restaurateur Jesse Vergen is Back in the Hot Seat
Saint John’s Jesse Vergen is back in the hot seat in the latest season of Top Chef Canada, a special all-star version that’s bringing together contestants from past seasons for a chance to redeem themselves.
The Saint John chef and restaurant owner has continued his successful career in New Brunswick as chef and co-owner of Saint John Alehouse, Smoking Pig BBQ, Toro Taco, Barred Rock Fried Chicken and McGills since achieving fourth place in Top Chef Canada’s fourth season.
He says while competing on Top Chef Canada again has been exciting, he still has deep roots in New Brunswick and the Saint John area.
“It was like jumping back into the fire,” Vergen says. “You sort of forget after a couple years how intense these competitions are. They’re really fast. You’ve got to think very quickly. You’ve got to react very quickly and you have to cook your ass off very quickly.”
Vergen says he was honoured and humbled to be invited back to compete in the All-Star season. He says things are very different this time around since it’s not just another cooking competition. He’s competing against the best of the best.
Vergen is going for the win this season. He says he’s a bit more mature and a little more tempered under fire since he first competed and that has made him ready to fight to the finale while staying true to his New Brunswick roots.
“I’m a New Brunswicker,” he says. “I was born and raised in the area. I grew up in the area. My family and friends are all here … [People say] ‘well you can make so much more money working in Toronto. You could do this…’ But years ago I literally drew my line in the sand and said this is where I want to be. This is my home. I don’t want to be somewhere that’s not my home.”
“We sort of forget living here that we have it so well here. It’s such a beautiful province. The seasons are very different. It’s not incredibly hot, it’s not incredibly cold … There are so many beautiful places here from the rivers to the forests so the beaches to the ocean.”
Vergen says the untested waters and unexplored lands of New Brunswick are part of what keeps him here. Since there aren’t as many chefs like him in the province as there would be in a more metropolitan area, Vergen feels he can take advantage of relatively unknown suppliers and untapped resources.
“I want to discover these things and over the years I’ve found so many different little suppliers or unique food items. They were obviously known about at some time but they weren’t celebrated,” he says.
“You don’t have a lot of chefs who have all done this before you, [whereas] you go into Toronto and there’s like the wild leek guy and everybody gets their wild leeks off him. Whenever some seasonal ingredient pops up, it’s on every single restaurant’s menu. Here you have a little more identity, that you’re not just a part of the mass as you would be in Toronto.”
Vergen says in a province with a population as small as New Brunswick’s, he can’t depend on a large population to sustain his businesses. He has to build relationships with customers, deliver every single time and mend those relationships when things go wrong.
Vergen thinks New Brunswickers are becoming more open to exploring new foods. He credits this change to the availability of information in a world of technology.
“I’ve seen the New Brunswick palate change massively in the past ten to fifteen years. New Brunswickers, and I think people in general, have really opened up … People just seem to be more aware about food, more aware about dietary requirements and they’re more interested in things.”
Top Chef Canada: All-Stars season premiered on April 2. Vergen will continue to appear on Top Chef Canada: All-Stars – for the time being anyway – as the season continues to air Sunday nights on the Food Network.
Vergen is now getting ready for the summer season and the opening of the Smoking Pig BBQ, which just gained approval from Quispamsis town council to allow them to serve beer.