The chef of Michelin-recommended Fat Rabbit is returning to Bar Raval

Zach Smith, chef and co-owner of St. Catharine’s Michelin-recommended Fat Rabbit and its new sister spot, Bar Les Incompétents, has announced that he’s returning to Bar Raval to “take care of some unfinished business.”

Back in 2020, Smith—then a rising young chef—left Bar Raval, where he had worked for four years as the restaurant’s chef de cuisine.

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“It was Covid and we all got laid off. My wife, who also worked at Bar Raval, and I packed up our stuff, took our daughter—who was only six-months old at the time—and headed to Niagara to be closer to my wife’s family,” says Smith.

The rest is history. Except it isn’t. Smith has officially teamed up with Grant van Gameren, and his long time business partner Hailey Burke (Bar Raval, Martine’s), and returned to the Spanish hot spot—this time as executive chef and co-owner.

“Like me, Grant has his hands in a lot of projects, and he also lives outside the city. We both know what it takes to manage multiple operations at a high level,” says Smith. “He reached out to me in early December to see if we could work together on Raval. It’s such an iconic place, and I worked there for so long—I couldn’t say no.”

To be clear, Smith is not leaving Fat Rabbit or Bar Les Incompétents. His plan is to remain in the Niagara region for six days a week, with a weekly visit to Toronto.

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“My Niagara spots are my babies,” says Smith. “I have a great team in place that I can count on, so my role there is really menu development, mentoring and owner-operator work. As for Raval, I’ll be in Toronto once a week, and beyond that I’ll be in constant communication with the team.”

Smith’s new menu at Bar Raval, which has been months in the making, rolled out last week and signals a return to form for the Spanish small-plates institution. “I was there at ground zero in the early days,” he says. That means truffled triple-cream brie with Ibérico salchichón and maple syrup, crispy cod, boquerones, lots of pickled things on skewers—and a few surprises that may involve shaved tuna heart.

“Those of us who know and love Raval, also know how tricky some things can be when you’re eating standing shoulder to shoulder in a buzzing bar. My goal is to take it back to where it started and put the focus back on pintxos. That really is what it’s all about.”