In Ferno’s Bistro founder always wanted his own restaurant

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This article was published 07/02/2016 (3813 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After his father died, Fern Kirouac Jr., the “Fern” in In Ferno’s Bistro and In Ferno’s on Academy, travelled to Hawaii to visit Roger Jones, an old family friend who was battling cancer.

Jones had worked and studied with Kirouac’s dad, Fern Kirouac Sr., a classically trained French chef who, before he passed away in 1990, was owner of the Red Lantern on Hamel Avenue and La Vieille Gare on Des Meurons Road.

A few days after Kirouac arrived in Hawaii, he and Jones drove to a bay near Jones’s home, where they sat on a bench and watched a pod of whales frolicking in the waves. At some point, Jones turned to his guest and remarked, “Have you done everything in life you’ve wanted to do? I know I have.”

“I was like, ‘Wow, what an incredible thing to be able to say,'” Kirouac said during an interview at his Niakwa Park bungalow, which he shares with his 16-year-old son, Zach, his five-year-old basset hound, Doug and — because he’s always been a “music nut” — nearly two dozen guitars and keyboards.

“It took me a while to answer, but finally I said, ‘No, Roger, I haven’t. Because if there’s one thing I’ve always wanted to do, it’s build my own restaurant from the ground up.’ “

 

— — —

 

Kirouac, the eldest of four siblings, was born in Montreal. He laughed and said no, Spam wasn’t on the menu at home when he was growing up. Sure, every once in a while lunchtime consisted of good, old-fashioned franks and beans, but usually when he, his brother and two sisters came home from school, they were greeted with scallops. Or quail. Or lamb.

“It wasn’t uncommon to walk through the door and see a whole pork head in a pot that my dad was using to make headcheese,” Kirouac said, seated on a couch next to his mother, Irene.

“Or he’d ask if we were hungry and whip up some live lobster. So yeah, I grew up with a pretty educated palate.”

Kirouac’s mother said her husband was the head chef at the Constellation Room in Toronto in 1966 when he was “headhunted” by the owners of the International Inn (now the Victoria Inn) — one of this city’s top hotels.

‘If there’s one thing

I’ve always wanted to do,

it’s build my own

restaurant from

the ground up’

— Fern Kirouac Jr. on what motivated him to eventually open In Ferno’s Bistro

“Not long after he came to Winnipeg, he got his own cooking show, The Charcoal Chef, on CBC,” Irene said. “He would invite people like the mayor or the premier on, and the two of them would prepare all these fancy dishes.”

Kirouac was 12 years old when he went to work for his father.

“My dad told me before I left (the International Inn), I was going to know how to work in every inch of a kitchen, from doing dishes to making pastry to deboning chicken and fish,” he said. “He was right. I did.”

Irene laughed and said the International Inn’s owners were more upset about losing the younger Kirouac after her husband purchased the Red Lantern in 1980 for $210,000 and took their son with him to be that establishment’s head chef.

“Ferny wasn’t a swearing man, but one day at the Lantern, he turned to me and said, ‘Son of a bitch if he doesn’t make a better soup than me.'”

La Vieille Gare came up for sale in 1984. Kirouac’s father jumped at the chance to own a second St. Boniface icon. For a couple of years, Kirouac remained at the Lantern while his father moved over to La Vieille Gare, famous for its railcar lounge.

But Kirouac’s father ran into a lot of trouble with kitchen staff — by then, he was primarily the host, Kirouac said — and one night, after telling his latest chef to pack his knives and go, he called his son up and said, “Get over here.” Kirouac was the chef at La Vieille Gare for the next seven years. (The Kirouacs sold the Red Lantern in 1990. Kirouac’s sister, Linda Love, continues to run what is now Resto Gare.)

 

— — —

 

Kirouac quit school in Grade 10, telling his parents he was either going to be a chef or a musician. He gave the latter a shot — in the mid-1970s, he played keyboards for the Honeythroats, a rock outfit with the claim to fame of opening for Ike and Tina Turner — but cooking eventually won out.

By 2001, however, Kirouac was ready for a change. For years, he’d been driving past a brick building at 312 Des Meurons Rd. on his way to work. It was called Rave Reviews — the owner made outfits for wrestlers and dancers, Kirouac recalled — and when it hit the market that year, he bought it, thinking he would convert it into a recording studio.

But when Kirouac headed out for a celebratory drink with the person he purchased the property from, he slipped and fractured his ankle. A trip to the emergency room revealed the divorced father of three also had a blood clot in his leg, a malady that put him and his studio dream on hold for a year-and-a-half.

“By March 2003 I still wasn’t working, and I was starting to run out of money,” Kirouac said. “I thought back to that conversation I’d had with Roger (in Hawaii) and decided to get back to doing what I do best.”

The bistro, which opened in December 2003, was a runaway hit from the get-go. Then-Free Press restaurant critic Marion Warhaft awarded In Ferno’s four out of five stars, Ciao! magazine named it one of Winnipeg’s best new restaurants of 2004 and A-list celebs such as Samuel L. Jackson and Dennis Quaid popped by while they were filming in Winnipeg to try Kirouac’s orange-glazed duck confit, bacon-wrapped elk sirloin and chicken stuffed with lingonberries and cambenzola.

“We were busy, but it was a grind, let me tell you,” said Kirouac, noting he still has customers coming in from his Red Lantern days, requesting “that Steak Diane you made for me, 30 years ago.”

“I put in almost 14 hours a day for six years straight. The first couple of years I only paid myself $20,000 because I was re-investing everything else into the business.”

(Kirouac added a second level to In Ferno’s Bistro in 2005. In Ferno’s on Academy, the flagship restaurant’s second location, opened in 2012 and is managed by Kirouac’s middle son, Chris Kirouac.)

“I still enjoy what I do immensely, but I am slowing down. I’ve definitely noticed over the last two years I’m not what I used to be,” said the grandfather of two.

“I still cut all the meat, I still do all the desserts, but I have one bum arm and have trouble holding a frying pan, so usually by 6:30 (p.m.) I’m walking the dog or watching Zach play soccer.”

That said, there is one item on Kirouac’s bucket list he needs to cross off before he can even think about hanging up his apron for good. On Saturday afternoons, guitarist Ron Halldorson, a Winnipeg legend who has worked with the likes of Lenny Breau, plays jazz at Kirouac’s restaurant. For a long time, Halldorson has been pestering Kirouac, who takes private guitar lessons every Monday night, to pull out his own axe and join him on stage.

“It’s looking like maybe this summer Zach and I — Zach plays, too — will sit in with Ron’s band, probably outside on the patio,” Kirouac said with a wide grin.

“Won’t that be something?”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca