Sun Peaks Resort LLP (SPR) has found a new executive chef in Kartik Kumar, a chef with years of experience in kitchens around the world. In Sun Peaks, his focus is on guiding new chefs to do their best work.
In his position with SPR, he oversees food preparation for resort-owned restaurants, including Mantles Restaurant and Lounge, Morissey’s Public House, Cafe Soliel, Masa’s Bar and Grill, Annex Food and Drink, The Umbrella Cafe, Sunburst Bar and Eatery.
Having cooked for the Dalai Lama, then Prince Charles and met Mother Theresa and Sir Edmund Hillary, Kumar said he’s happy to take a step back and teach.
“Now, the satisfaction is in growing young people into developing their skills, their true potential,” he told SPIN.
He arrived in Sun Peaks May 1, motivated by his admiration and respect for the chief of accommodation and hospitality for SPR, Sandra Gregory.
“Even though I’m much older than her age wise, I’ve got a lot to learn from her,” he said. “Patience, wisdom, empathy, kindness, tolerance.”
Currently in what he calls the Autumn of his career, he plans on finishing his career in Sun Peaks before retiring in Panama to a small acreage where he can rescue donkeys.
Born and raised in Southern India, Kumar’s home was a place where everybody cooked, igniting his passion from a young age. But at age four, he was sent to live in a monastery 600 miles away due to his mother’s fight with cancer, after which he only saw his parents once a year.
“It made me the person I am, with mental strength.”
There he was taught to be self-reliant and to believe in himself.
Guiding young chefs
Each culinary team he’s worked with has brought something new to the table.
He described the skill level of many chefs he’s worked with in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia as 10-out-of-10.
His team in Sun Peaks pose a new slate of challenges and lessons for him.
One lesson he’s taking in is “understanding other people’s perspective…putting yourself in that person’s shoes as to why they do what they do,” he said.
He enjoys the challenge of passing on his knowledge to new groups of people, but has found it challenging in Canada to find motivated talent in the industry.
“They have this wrong conception that joining the hospitality business is all of our days, seven days a week,” he said, adding this misunderstanding of the industry can be hard, but he finds satisfaction in building community through shared meals and promoting work-life balance.
“That’s what I tell all my own team, you get an opportunity to create an experience that lasts a lifetime.”
Still, the variety of cultures in Canada – which he dubs a “mosaic” – has made it one of the best countries he’s lived in. This diversity was on display in Sun Peaks during the street fair July 5 when two of his team cooked food from their respective backgrounds, Jamaica and Argentina.
Part of the street food celebrations on First Fridays include a selection of Moroccan food from another resort chef.
Evolving his teaching
Kumar underwent his apprenticeship in France where he was trained in “old school discipline.”
Now in his 60s, he said he’s adopted a gentler approach when overseeing other chefs.
“When I was younger, I was very hard, not just on myself, but on people who worked with me,” he said, explaining he’d expect nothing less than nine-out-of-10 of their dishes.
Having worked in many different countries with people of various backgrounds, he’s become more flexible in letting people find their own way of doing things.
One of his favourite pieces of advice to provide is to ask questions.
“There are no stupid questions, there are only stupid answers,” he said.
In the leadership position he holds, he allows chefs to come up with their own ideas, then works with them to discover their viability, cost and quality wise.
“The more you give people the power to do what they need to do, what happens then is that the food is just as good when you’re here as when you’re not here.”
To Kumar, that is a mark of success.
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