Jamie Kennedy strode out of his kitchen, sidled up to the bar and sighed. The room was filled with food critics who had been whispering his demise for months. Mr. Kennedy had just cooked them lunch.
The food was delicious, but life for one of Canada's most celebrated celebrity chefs has been a kitchen nightmare.
His business, Jamie Kennedy Kitchens, has been on the verge of bankruptcy. Mr. Kennedy has decided to sell off its crown jewel, the Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar, in an effort to wrestle down a debilitating debt.
Even so, the numbers are frightening. Some of his restaurants are losing money and he figures he will be operating in the red for the next five years.
Tuesday's lunch at his new, scaled-down restaurant at the Gardiner Museum, was an effort to set the record straight, but it was also meant to prove a point: The era of fine dining at lunch, at least in Toronto, is over.
“It makes me think that the product that we were offering isn't right for this time,” he said of the previous incarnation of the Gardiner, which closed earlier this month.
His new café at the museum and his cafeteria-style Gilead café reflect a more casual approach, featuring fresh, local fare at a lower price point, which he hopes will catch on and eventually prove profitable.
Right now, it's that local fare that is arguably killing his business, something the notoriously private chef himself readily admits.
“I'm losing money because embracing the local food movement where costs are inherently higher, is challenging,” he said, sipping a glass of sparkling water and golden plum puree.
Addressing his critics before a lunch of steamed asparagus, braised beef and butter tart – all from Ontario farms, he said: “Food is never going to be cheap again, let's face it.”
Mr. Kennedy's decision to stay committed to higher-cost, local food with what is left of his restaurant empire is a huge gamble, but a necessary one, says the chef whose name has become synonymous with the movement.
He believes consumer demand will eventually drive down the costs and he's willing to use his remaining restaurants as laboratories to prove it.
Mr. Kennedy describes the past six months as the toughest of his professional life.
In October, he was courting investors to inject capital into his company. When they opened his books, they balked.
“That was the moment,” he recalled. “For a third party to look at the business like that. It was pretty cold.
“The first reaction is disbelief, then fear and anxiety, and then my reaction was I just really want to know what's going on.”
Mr. Kennedy recruited three teams of people to go over his books.
Jamie Kennedy Kitchens had been in debt for at least two years, he said, and the recession was having a devastating effect.
“I was operating at a significant loss. In better times, you could absorb that. … If you have debt, you have to have enough there,” he said.
In hindsight, he acknowledges that he expanded too quickly, and perhaps spread himself too thin. In addition to running three restaurants, he owns a farm in Prince Edward County, teaches, and cooks for a number of prominent charity functions.
His financial advisers told him to scale back and look at new revenue streams. He decided to close Jamie Kennedy at the Gardiner as a fine-dining restaurant. He looked at new sources of revenue – selling soups to Rowe Farms, and charcuterie to local, organic butchers.
“Some of the stuff is about correction, really. It's about maybe how you should have been doing things, but because it's such an emergency now, it really forces you to think,” he said.
Even though he's retrenched, Mr. Kennedy says he is hardly in the clear.
Would he ever be forced to close down completely?
The chef pauses, sips plum puree and sighs. “Totally. I could make that choice, but I choose not to,” he said.
Last winter, he came close to declaring bankruptcy. “There were creditors out there, people I owe quite a substantial amount of money to. These are people that I would not want to see left behind in the rush to see who's first in a bankruptcy situation.”
Those creditors haven't gone away, but for now, Mr. Kennedy has bought some time.
“I tell them to hang in there. Continue to be patient. Somehow, we're going to get ourselves out of this mess.”
