Founder, Bear Foot Bistro
Photos and questions by Maureen Provençal
PQ: What’s your food/wine philosophy?
A.S-J.: I think that the secret to great food is the quality of product: to have great suppliers, great farms, great producers You need food with lots of flavour.
PQ: One food you can't live without?
A.S-J.: Caviar.
PQ: What food/drink should people be more open to trying?
A.S.-J: Champagne with dinner.
PQ: Weirdest thing you've ever eaten?
A.S.-J.: Monkey brain
PQ: Most memorable meal you've ever eaten?
A.S.-J: Les crayeres in Champagne.
PQ: Exact moment you decided to become a Restaurateur?
A.S.-J.: It wasn’t a moment it was a gradual move. My dad was a big wine nut and introduced me to great wine and great meals as I was growing up and that’s what attracted me.
PQ: What's your solution for a last-minute meal?
A.S.-J.: Nice juicy piece of kobe steak on the barbecue with a nice juicy cabernet sauvignon.
PQ: Best trend in food/restaurants?
A.S.-J.: To use the same base ingredient prepared three or four different ways on the plate.
PQ: Worst trend in food/restaurants?
A.S.-J.: Low fat foods. The Atkins diet. Any type of diet.
PQ: Greatest professional moment?
A.S.-J.: Dom Perignon wine dinner in 1998 at Bear Foot Bistro. The food and wine were phenomenal. We drank multiple decades of Dom Perignon with Jean Berchon the ambassador to Dom Perignon. It was a magical evening.
PQ: Where would you go to eat, if you could go anywhere in the world?
A.S.-J.: El bulli in Spain
PQ: Where would you go for your last meal in Whistler?
A.S.-J.: That’s a hard take. There are so many great restaurants. I would go to Quattro.
PQ: Personal hero?
A.S.-J.: Jean Berchon
