Recipe for success

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This article was published 30/11/2018 (2816 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Chef Matty Matheson is the definition of a larger-than-life character.

For starters, he’s a big guy — something he doesn’t even attempt to hide, as his often-shirtless shots on Instagram will show — who wears his outsize appetites on his sleeve.

He’s also a legendary character in the Toronto food scene, an extravagantly tattooed culinary school dropout who worked his way up to chef of the popular Parkdale restaurant Parts and Labour, leaving behind him a wake of empty whisky bottles, a trail of cocaine and a book’s worth of stories.

The party lifestyle didn’t hinder his success — he hosted a web series called Hangover Cures and his P&L cheeseburger won the Toronto edition of reality show Burger Wars, but at age 29, Matheson suffered a heart attack, a wakeup call that eventually led him to rehab.

Now 36, the chef/TV star — who is married to his high school sweetheart, Trish Spencer, with whom he has two kids, a boy, Macarthur (Mac, 2½) and a newborn girl, Rizzo — is sober and involved in more projects than ever, putting his cheerfully foul-mouthed, easygoing charisma at the forefront.

The Viceland travel/food show Dead Set on Life sees the gregarious chef plunked down in places across Canada to explore the food scene. (On his visit to Winnipeg, he explored the city’s Filipino cuisine.)

His other Vice offering — a slightly more traditional cooking show called It’s Suppertime on the Munchies channel — features him whipping up to-die-for dishes on episodes such as Can You Say Cassoulet? and The Ultimate ‘Get You Laid’ Meal (hint: it’s surf ’n’ turf with potato crostini and chocolate volcano cake).

Parts and Labour is closing, but he’s got a new restaurant in the works, about which he’s closed-lipped —except to say it will be on Queen Street in Toronto.

His latest venture is Matty Matheson: A Cookbook (Abrams, $35), which follows the arc of his life via food. Full of funny, warm stories about his family and his early culinary adventures, it includes recipes that remind him of visiting his grandparents in Prince Edward Island (lobster pie), growing up with his two brothers and sister in the Maritimes and Fort Erie, Ont. (Mom’s Cheesy Things), his first professional job at Toronto’s Le Select Bistro (blanquette ris de veau) and Parts & Labour (The Infamous Fried Pig Face).

Reached at the airport in St. John’s, N.L., Matheson — using far fewer F-bombs than you might expect — chatted about cutting corners, hard work and his trippy life.

FP: The recipes in A Cookbook range from super simple — like, blueberries and cream — to pretty complex creations. Do you imagine anyone actually committing to spending four days to make lamb dandan noodles?

MM: I hope so! I find it extremely rewarding the people that are coming up to me and telling me that they’re cooking from it, and they’re trying. And you know, you don’t have to make a stock. If you’re making lamb dandan, you can just as easily buy boxed chicken stock. A lot of the times are variable — you could make any of the recipes within 48 hours, if you know how to cheat a little bit and cut some corners. I get lots of questions about the recipes at readings and it’s funny that people are actually reading it, not just talking about the recipes that I made on Munchies. That’s my whole thing: people should know how to cook. It’s good for self-esteem and it’s just really nice to be able to cook, for yourself and others. That’s a very big win for sure.

FP: When it comes to shortcuts, is there a place where you draw the line?

MM: Well, you could be kind of a prick and say, “you need to know how to do it properly before you can cut the corners, because if you just cut the corners, you’re never going to really know how to do it.” I know how to make chicken stock, so I have no qualms using boxed stock, but I also think it’s pretty wild to think that people have the time to make a four-day recipe. I definitely don’t even cook that way at home — 99 per cent of the time I’m using boxed stock. I’ll fortify it — I know how to build off of that, use it as a crutch — but I think it’s kind of elitist to think that people have the time or that they should know how. Well, you should know, but maybe you don’t.

FP: I just remember a line in Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential where he says that if you don’t have the time to chop fresh garlic, you might as well just order takeout.

MM: Yeah, I think if you don’t have 24 hours to make stock, fine, but I don’t understand using packaged lemon juice or lime juice. So yes, I agree with Tony on that; even using pre-peeled garlic is pretty dark.

FP: Cooking is a big part of your family history, with both sets of grandparents running restaurants in the Maritimes. How much did that influence your career path?

MM: I was brought up in a meat-and-potatoes family, but the meat mattered, you know? We had prime rib every weekend, we always had roasted chicken, because my dad worked in a slaughterhouse. I never heard the word “chef” in my life from my grandfather (Matheson’s paternal grandfather ran the Blue Goose restaurant on P.E.I.) or anything like that. I don’t think he thought of himself as a chef; he was a restaurant operator. But he was a phenomenal cook.

FP: If you’re in a city for the first time and for a short time, do you visit the Michelin-starred restaurant or the local hole-in-the-wall?

MM: First time, gotta be the hole-in-the-wall. You gotta taste what’s in the toes; you gotta go suck the city’s feet.

FP: You’ve had the chance to do that in a lot of places with Dead Set on Life. What’s the grossest thing you’ve ever eaten?

MM: When I was in Winnipeg and I ate the Filipino balut egg (a fertilized egg that contains a bird embryo; it’s a popular street food). But the thing that it doesn’t show is that my egg was overcooked, it was like hard-boiled egg. A hard-boiled egg is already a little chokey and chalky. And then imagine it having a little chicken fetus in it. It was like putting an egg fart-bomb in my mouth.

FP: You have a pretty colourful history, which is invariably going to be mentioned in any article about you. Do you ever wish you could move past that part of your life or do you just own it?

MM: Yeah, no, it’s me, you know? The thing about it is I was never a bad dude. Even though I was f—ed up, doing lots of drugs, being a maniac, I was never a bad dude. I’m sure I was an a–hole at times, but I wasn’t a creep. I got no regrets. Life is life. I never burned a bridge, really. I was always just a super-fun party guy; that’s part of my story. I’m 36, that’s almost 20 years of my life of hard partying, from Day 1. I truly love it was a part of my life. A lot of scary sh– happened and I got out of it and I didn’t repeat it; I’m not a complete idiot.

What’s happened to me in the last five years is a bigger trip than anything that happened when I was on acid.

FP: Do you consider yourself lucky?

MM: Lucky is kind of stupid, I think. If people think they’re lucky, they’re just being naive or ignorant. I work hard, man. I work really hard. I wake up every day thinking about what I need to think about and I need to do actions to bring that to life.

And it’s a funny thing because everyone’s like “Man, you’re killing it,” and I’m like, “Hey, I’ve closed restaurants.” We’re closing Parts and Labour after 10 years. We closed P&L catering, we closed P&L Burger. Everything isn’t a hit in my story. I don’t have all wins. I’m just a positive dude. Failing is just as cool as winning to me.

jill.wilson@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @dedaumier