For almost anyone other than Jamie Kennedy, September of 2008 was not the best time to hold an optimistic view of the world.
In fact, as we now know after his recent revelations, the superstar chef could have been leading the pessimism vanguard. His high-end restaurant at the Gardiner Museum was turning into a financial disaster as the luxury-lunch market faltered and ceramics admirers demanded something quicker and cheaper than his fastidious, locally sourced cuisine. Huge cost overruns at the recently renovated headquarters of Jamie Kennedy Kitchens soured the positive reviews of the artisanal charcuterie and fancy granola bars at his more budget-conscious Gilead Café.
Meanwhile, the 52-year-old namesake of an ever-expanding food empire was increasingly distracted by his farm property in Prince Edward County, and the dreams of opening a rural restaurant/tavern that could serve as a model for the chef's agrarian ideals. In a buoyant economy, maybe he could have got away with his midlife longings for the simple life and its philosophically pure pursuits. But when the recession caught him in its grip, the compromises were unavoidable: He missed paying his trade creditors, ducked bank loans, and found virtue in looking after his staff salaries rather than redirecting PST and GST money to the provincial and federal governments.
“I expanded too quickly,” he now says, sounding more like a chastened entrepreneur than an artisan whose $6 Yukon Gold fries were the talk of the town. “I was exposed to costs far out of balance with my revenue.”
How badly off is the chef who effectively shut down his restaurant at the Gardiner, where the contract runs to 2011, and will now try to make a go of it with a salad-and-sandwiches café?
“I am in a very precarious position. If someone like the provincial government decides they don't want to play ball, they could force the issue and tip the balance. Bankruptcy is an option, but at the end of the day, the people who lose out are those who trusted me. So it's not a viable choice.”
Yet just nine months ago, the man who can't or won't pay his bills delivered a personal message posted on the website of the Evergreen Brick Works that betrayed none of these internal conflicts. Announcing the opening of the new Chefs' Market he helped develop at the Brick Works' Don Valley site – the message includes a picture of the lean, long-haired chef in full farmer mode – he couldn't have been more optimistic: “These are exciting times in the world of gastronomy,” he wrote. “We have entered into a new era that recognizes the importance of making connections between local farmers and the population of the city.”
Here was a food lover who could set a small emerging farmers' market against a global collapse and find a new era of excitement. Understand that conundrum and you've figured out Jamie Kennedy, a youthful veteran who's managed to occupy the centre of Toronto restaurant culture over almost three decades of economic highs and lows. Foodies with short memories may believe these are the worst of times. But the chef who's known the peaks of Scaramouche, Palmerston, JK at the ROM, the many permutations of the ever-thronged Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar and now the nose-to-tail simplicities of the Gilead Café accepts that there's going to be down time between the great successes.
“Entrepreneurs take risks, they make mistakes,” he says. “I've opened and closed restaurants, I got through the bad times, I survived.”
But this time it's worse – even he acknowledges the seriousness of the situation after his moment of philosophical consolation. When he hosted a food writers' lunch at the Gardiner 11 days ago to acknowledge his plight, his critics felt he was denying responsibility by pointing out the higher costs of the local, artisanal ingredients he favours. Now he's content to accept the blame.
“I've made strategic errors over the last two or three years,” he says. “The responsibility for the precarious position the company is in today can't be blamed on the downturn in the economy or the cost of local food.”
