“How I went from being a vegan activist to chef at one of the world’s best steakhouses”

I was born in 1973 in West Vancouver to a single mother, the second youngest of eight kids. My mom struggled financially, raising us on social assistance and the occasional generosity of boyfriends. She was a terrible cook: she made “Spanish rice” by mixing Uncle Ben’s with tomato paste and sometimes bacon, when we could get it. But there were many days we just didn’t eat. I got used to not knowing where my next meal would come from.

When I was 14, I got a summer job at the Stanley Park concession stand. Every morning, my boss would make me a cup of black coffee and sprinkle it with tiny brown balls, which I later learned were hash. Never one to turn away food or drink, I accepted it without question. Then my boss would check out for the day, leaving me in charge. I hired and fired people and cooked. Despite our tiny stand, we made everything from scratch, grinding our own meat for burgers and cutting the fries by hand. I fed myself with leftovers, helped my mom with the bills and used my newly acquired skills to cook for my family at home. It was hard work, but I loved the high I got from feeding others. Though I didn’t yet know it, I would spend years finding my way back to that feeling.

That fall, at school, I met a girl named Eden Fineday. She was a member of the Cree Sweetgrass reserve in Saskatchewan and had moved to BC to live with her mother. She had a fresh way of looking at the world. She was vegan, passionate about the environment, and she loved music. She played the piano, and we started jamming on whatever instrument I could get my hands on.

At 15, I left home and moved in with Eden and her mom. I started reading about the environment and animal rights. I picked up a copy of Diet for a New America by John Robbins, heir to the Baskin Robbins fortune, and became a vegan too. It was 1990, and Youth for Environmental Sanity, a group of youth activists who toured North America speaking to students about humane food practices and environmental health, came to town. YES was backed by high-profile figures like River Phoenix, Roger Hodgson, Dave Wakeling and Casey Kasem. Eden and I went to see the show, and afterward, we chatted with the group about our shared beliefs. We were idealistic, bright-eyed and ready to change the world. They invited us to join the tour, and we agreed. A few days later, we dropped out of school, packed up our stuff, hopped in a YES Volkswagen van and headed to the group’s headquarters in Santa Cruz, California.

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YES took care of us. They fed us and gave us a place to live in Santa Cruz. We travelled the US, staging a multimedia show that incorporated music, talks and skits. A filmmaker named John Oettinger made a documentary about us, and we were even guests on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The group gave me some much needed stability, but after three years, I was ready for something new.

In 1992, a friend of mine was moving to LA, and I decided to go with him. I called up River Phoenix, whom I’d met through YES, and asked if he knew a place where we could crash. Amazingly, he offered us his duplex, rent free. He lived in one unit and used the other for his band rehearsals. My friend and I slept on a mattress on the floor of the band’s space.

I didn’t have a work visa but found a job working under the table for Greenpeace. My ultimate plan was to join the Sea Shepherd Society, a radical crew of marine activists who ram illegal whaling ships on international waters with their fleet of boats. They’re like good pirates. For a few months, I cleaned and helped repair their boats, but it wasn’t long before US Immigration tracked me down. Less than a year after I’d arrived in LA, I had to go back to Canada.

By this time, I was nearly 19, and I felt more adrift than ever. I briefly tried to finish high school, but after everything I’d experienced, it just felt too restrictive. I dropped out again and joined a company called Student Action for a Viable Earth, or SAVE. While on tour with them, I fell in love with a girl who was moving to Montreal and decided to follow her there.

I enrolled in CEGEP and finally graduated high school in 1995. I played bass in a band called Fuck Fuck and got a job cooking at a vegan co-op restaurant called Café Phoenix. It was a special place, full of creatives and frequented by artists and musicians like Rufus Wainwright, Melissa Auf der Maur, Win Butler and Courtney Love. At the café, we were making foods that no one had heard of at the time, like tempeh and seitan. Our motto was: work all day for no pay. I worked for food and nothing else, but I didn’t mind. In fact, I loved it so much that I took two other jobs just so I could afford to keep working there. To me, what we cooked there was groundbreaking and radical, and it made me feel alive.

Related: Where chef Danny McCallum eats sourdough bread, spaghetti bolognese and Italian desserts in his Junction neighbourhood

The Phoenix also gave me access to a world that most people couldn’t even dream of. I hung out with the Smashing Pumpkins, and Courtney Love overdosed in my bathtub. I was the sole witness to the horrifying murder of Martin Suazo—I saw a cop blow out the brains of a 23-year-old man he’d arrested for shoplifting and walk away unpunished—and I worked on a story about the crime. It ended up being the first cover of Vice magazine, in 1996. I began seeing a woman named Julie Netley, and when she moved back to her hometown of Toronto, in 2003, I went with her.

It was in Toronto that I decided to commit myself to the one thing that had always brought me joy: cooking. I worked at the Taro Grill and Citron, catered film sets and even had a brief stint as Hilary Weston’s personal chef. One day, a friend insisted that I try bacon—after 15 years of veganism—and I caved. I ended up loving it. After that, I started slowly reintroducing meat into my diet, but I never stopped caring about what I was eating and where my food came from.

The following year, I moved to Cascais, Portugal, to work at a small Mediterranean restaurant owned by one of Julie’s friends. I had never been to Europe, and it was eye-opening to me as a chef; in fact, it may have been the first time I thought of myself as one. I developed a new menu, had access to beautiful ingredients like fish from the Mediterranean and farm-grown produce, and learned ancient techniques like making kvass, a Russian fermented bread alcohol. I learned that ancient stories are told through food, and as long as I was part of its creation, I was telling my story too.

I returned to Toronto in 2005 and was hired as a cook at the now-closed Brassaii on King West. The restaurant was owned by King Street Food Company, and in 2009, they opened Jacobs and Co. Steakhouse in the Fashion District, where I became the sous-chef. It was there that I met my wife, Kat, and eventually took over as head chef. People ask me how a former vegan could become the executive chef of one of the world’s best steakhouses, but to me, it’s all about ethical sourcing and thoughtful preparation. My passion for and knowledge of food has always been my guiding force. We choose our meat based on how the animals are raised. The fish I order is hand-caught—I know the body of water it’s from, the name of the person who caught it, even what the fishing boat is called. I like to think there’s a bit of activism in each bite at Jacobs, so even Bay Street suits can taste how good it feels to be radical.

This month, we’re opening a brand new 300-person dining room in the Financial District, where every inch is a thing of beauty. Part of me wonders how I got here. Growing up the way I did, it wasn’t easy to carve out a space for myself. But it’s all that carving and clawing that made me who I am.