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The Fairmont Royal York’s culinary encounter
Fairmont has taken the proactive step of reviewing its purchasing and food sourcing practices to make more sustainable choices
By: Mary Gostelow
Stay at The Fairmont Royal York, Toronto, and you can go shopping with a chef.
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Every Saturday morning one of the culinary brigade leads tours around the historic St Lawrence Market (photo), ten minutes' walk east of the historic luxury hotel. You can meet such producers as organic farmer John Rowe of Rowe Farm Meats; Rick Blackwood of Mike’s Seafood and Alan Graziano, who sells rare organic produce.
David Garcelon, Executive Chef of the hotel, says all his chefs want to use heirloom-type, local and organic products. And guests seem to love it too.
'Business travelers who spend a lot of time in hotels are much more interested in knowing where lamb comes from rather than merely seeing 'rack of lamb' on a menu', he says. Discerning travelers want to learn. Yes, 'designer' products may cost a little more but they are more interesting, and they invariably taste so much better.
His words are echoed by Serge Simard, Vice President, Food & Beverage for the Fairmont group worldwide. “Our guests are very savvy, experienced diners, and they also are becoming more conscious of how their consumer choices affect the planet. Fairmont's new culinary approach will make it easy to make individual, sustainable food choices as part of a global effort. We want our guests to know that when they dine at Fairmont, not only can they count on the very best, freshest ingredients and a true experience of the destination through their culinary choices, there will always be a range of sustainable options for them to consider.”
Menus across the group reflect this focus on fresh cuisine (there has already been a move to eliminate all artificial trans fat from dining offerings). The company has also taken the proactive step of reviewing its purchasing and food sourcing practices to see in which areas more sustainable choices can be incorporated, both at a hotel and a corporate level. For example, all hotels worldwide offer guests the choice of menu items prepared with organic eggs. Fairmont partners, too, with The Metropolitan Tea Company Ltd., North America’s first member of the Ethical Tea Partnership, who have created a specially branded line called Tea at The Fairmont, sourced through Fair Trade organizations and wine lists must include organic or bio-dynamic wines from such producers as Bonterra Vineyards, the world’s leading producer of wines made from certified organically grown grapes.
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Food is our fuel. Where does it come from, how long has it flown from the other side of the world? For too long small food producers have been in the background, swamped by large companies. Now they are on the stage again, says David Garcelon
The Fairmont Royal York, Toronto, has a rooftop garden on an upper floor terrace, reached by four flights of stairs up from the 11th floor elevator room. From April to November, the garden provides an array of herbs and vegetables, and in 2008 there will be the first grapes from a pair of Cabernet Franc vines and another couple of Vidal vines. An outside consultant advises on what will best grow, and culinary apprentices do the gardening. Any chef can go and harvest whenever. In 2007, for the first time guests at the hotel's daily afternoon tea service have been invited to visit the garden and over a thousand keen gardeners took up the invitation.
In any 24 hours, the 1,348-room hotel serves between 2,500 and 7,000 meals, including breakfasts and functions: in 2006, over a million meals were served in all. Room service use depends on the business: dinners are generally highest on Sundays and Mondays, when single business travelers prefer to eat via private dining rather that sitting by themselves in the ground floor EPIC restaurant, or the leased-out basement Benihana.
David Garcelon, who was born in New Brunswick and got into the business by working in restaurants as a teenager, has a brigade of 110, including ten apprentices. (Sadly, he says, many of the youngsters coming into his kitchens must be weaned away from the fast-food mentality that is so prevalent in North America.) Fairmont's culinarians are rigorously trained in food preparation and cooking so that they can adapt to any trend, and they are the ultimate professionals, says Garcelon. Whereas he sees others at culinary competitions wearing merely a chef's jacket over jeans or shorts, his brigade is always immaculately turned out in full pristine whites, including towering hats. www.fairmont.com/royalyork
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