Luke Hayes-Alexander, Kingston's prodigy chef, turns 21
Luke Hayes-Alexander just turned 21. His birthday marks the 6-year anniversary of his role as executive chef at Luke’s Gastronomy, his family’s Kingston, Ontario, restaurant.
Hayes-Alexander announced that he wanted to be a chef when he was 11.
“For four years every waking hour was spent reading books, researching, experimenting, and cooking. Wow, did I cook…I braised, sautéed, sliced and diced, julienned, pickled and poached. I butchered and boned, trussed and trimmed, peeled and pureed. I had decided to start at the beginning of the food timeline and to teach myself the techniques I would require to cook my way through the history of food,” he told Queens University students in his 2010 TEDx speech.
“So, while other kids my age were riding their bikes and playing video games, I was teaching myself how to butcher animals, bake peasant breads, churn butter, emulsify, confit and brine.”
When he turned 15, he took the restaurant’s menu into “upscale and experimental” territory, earning raves from food critics everywhere.
Was his youth a draw? Sure. But the dedication to his craft — he’s considered a master charcutier, doing his own butchery — and his avant-garde creations made from local and seasonal ingredients are what keeps the 22-seat restaurant packed seven nights a week.
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Hayes-Alexander works alone, prepping, cooking and cleaning — “I like a silent kitchen,” he admitted to The Toronto Star — preparing unique five-course meals as his mother greets and serves customers out front.
Australian food writer Franz Scheurer calls the “genius-level bright” chef a particularly interesting contributor to the world of food “because he hasn’t gone to cooking school, worked in other restaurants or travelled.”
With age comes confidence in the public sphere. The once-shy young man, the 6-foot-5 chef is now prolific on Twitter — “Local foods + love + respect + whimsy = what I do” — and is stepping outside of his behind-the-scenes comfort zone to make public appearances and even help pitch a TV series based on his career called “Launching Luke.”
Does he believe his own hype?
“I’m not a massive fan of labels of any sort — including labels with food — because they can kind of be limiting, though I’m certainly flattered when people use terms like ‘genius’ and ‘prodigy,’” he said. “Really, I prefer to think of myself as being very dedicated and passionate, knowing that I’m doing what I should be doing. I think that’s the secret — the fact that I’ve already spent pretty much half my life cooking.”
His dedication — or borderline obsession — with his craft could be an example to all of us: “All I do is read and cook and learn.”
If you want to benefit from Hayes-Alexander’s cooking and learning, try making his simple quail dish — the recipe’s posted at The Toronto Star.
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