PICAchef Instructors Collaborate with Chef Matthew Kammerer on Menu Showcasing the Best of BC Farms & Fields
The stars aligned on July 14th, 2022, when Michelin and Destination Vancouver announced the MICHELIN® Guide Vancouver, the latest expansion of the MICHELIN Guide. Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts (PICAchef) had the honor of hosting the event celebrating the announcement. Chef-Instructors Ben Kiely, Christian Lai-Chun and Dave Letford were invited to collaborate with Chef Matthew Kammerer, Executive Chef of the two Michelin-starred and Michelin Green Star restaurant The Harbor House Inn in Mendocino County, CA and to design a canapé menu that incorporated an variety of ingredients sourced locally, produced sustainably, and prepared with minimal waste.
The resulting menu brought together the bounty of British Columbia’s ocean, farms, fields and forests in items handpicked, and in some cases chef-harvested, from purveyors like Hannah Brook Farm, Yarrow Meadow, North Arm Farm, Avalon Farms, The Sugar Shack, UBC Farm, Mikuni Wild Harvest, Graziano Orchards, Fieldstone Organics, Sea Star Winery and more.
PICA’s Chef-instructors and students prepared a canapé menu that included: Sieglinde Potato (hay-smoked Sieglinde potato cream, Yarrow duck snow, foraged salmon berries), Radishes & Butter - watermelon, jade and purple radishes, wild foraged pickled huckleberries, house-made cultured butter, local maple sugar buckwheat candy), Asparagus x Asparagus (young local sea and land asparagus, pickled zucchini rounds, bumble berry syrup), and Okanagan Apricot (chef-picked BC apricots, wild foraged sage cream, local artisan honey).
“It was an honor to welcome Chef Matthew into our facility to work our Chef-Instructors with students and an incredible opportunity for them to showcase their creativity and love for local,” says PICAchef’s President & Owner, Sylvia Potvin. “We’re thrilled to welcome the Michelin Guide to Vancouver and look forward to see how it will help set the stage for future students to aspire to a career in the culinary arts and help promote the amazing restaurants and purveyors we have throughout BC.”
The inaugural edition of the MICHELIN Guide Vancouver, with the selection of local restaurants receiving honors, will be announced this fall. Inspectors award MICHELIN Stars – One, Two or Three – to unparalleled cuisine. The Guides also award Bib Gourmand ratings on restaurants that offer great quality food at good prices, and award the MICHELIN Green Star to restaurants that are leaders in sustainable gastronomy.
With last week’s announcement at PICAchef, Vancouver joins Toronto as the only MICHELIN Guide destinations in Canada and among the seven in North America.
