I met Warren Barr last October during PEI's Fall Flavours Festival, hosted by chef Michael Smith. He and Warren, the current chef at Inn at Bay Fortune, teamed up to produce the festival's grand finale, the "Fortune Feast," featuring a nine-course dinner including such delicacies as risotto made from PEI potatoes, wild apple sorbet, silky pumpkin soup and smoked salmon with pickled nasturtium.
Originally from Williams Lake, BC, Warren joined the inn in spring 2005 as a cook, and took over as chef in 2006. His menus include his own hand-cured meats, and focuses on fresh, local ingredients-which may involve foraging for wild mushrooms in the backwoods, picking wild watercress in a nearby stream or browsing at Charlottetown's farmers market. Chicken and lamb are raised to his specification on nearby farms, and fresh seafood arrives daily from local fishers.
Q How did you become a chef?
A I started working in kitchens during the summer while I was in high school and didn't think much of it other than it was fun enough, and it paid me. It wasn't until after finishing high school, that I really took an interest in it. I was trying to earn money to attend hospitality management school, so I went back into the kitchen; it was then that I realized I really enjoyed cooking.
Q What accomplishment are you proud of?
A I've made a point of working under good people; I've taken as much as I could from every experience and used those experiences to better myself as a person, both in and out of the kitchen. I guess I'm proud of that.
Q What kitchen tools can you not live without?
A My Glestain knives, timer and digital thermometer.
Q What upcoming food trends do you see?
A I think the appreciation of science in cuisine will continue to gain in popularity. Maybe not to the extent of Ferran Adria or Grant Achatz, but on a more practical level of just understanding what's really happening to food when it is manipulated. Notice the way things react as they are heated… or cool down. Try doing things different ways so you can observe the results. Even failures are a success when you learn from them.
Q Do you have a favourite cookbook?
A Michel Bras' Essential Cuisine, Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, and I'm really enjoying Heston Blumenthal's The Big Fat Duck Cookbook.
Q What foods do you eat "in secret"?
A Pogos with tons of mayonnaise.
Q What do you like to do when not in the kitchen?
A Enjoy beer with friends and eat Pogos with tons of mayonnaise.
Q If you could cook for any three people, who would they be?
A You could just pick any three people from my friends and family-pretty much anyone I care about and respect-and that would be perfect.