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Justin Siklis,
Chef’s Catering,
Toronto, Ont.
By Gary Lipovetsky, President of MenuPalace.com
Picture this — you’ve been hired by a trusted client to prepare a barbecue for 700 hungry people on a hot summer day. But just when you’ve set up all your equipment and thrown on the first chicken breasts, you realize the eager mob is double the size you were expecting and they’re all looking at you for food. The smoky aroma coming off the grills isn’t helping, either.
Hey, nobody said the catering business was easy. Thankfully, there are a few outfits like Justin Siklis’ Chef’s Catering Co. that do it exceptionally well.
MP: Your dad started this business. What was he like?
JS: When I was off in the summertime my dad used to take me to business meetings. I remember he used to carry his briefcase around, which is a funny story, actually. My dad is from Greece and he was a chef — he had a business partner handling the financial stuff. One time I asked him, “Dad, you never open this briefcase. What’s inside?” So I opened it and inside was an onion.
MP: I guess it shows where his heart was at.
JS: Yeah, he loved cooking and he was good at it.
MP: Some kids despise the family business growing up.
JS: No, I liked it. I worked every summer and did every single job. I was cashier, dishwasher, I would help in the kitchen, I bartended. I learned a great deal working for my dad.
MP: OK, tell me a bit about your business today?
JS: We’re in the catering business, but what we really do is customer service. Our whole mandate is flexibility. There are many caterers in the city that do fantastic work, serving fresh and well-presented, tasty food, but a lot of people lack that commitment to customer service. We really focus on giving people a choice to customize what they get.
MP: Why is that important?
JS: People today are more knowledgeable about food. They know what they want and they know what they’re putting into their bodies.
MP: So you do corporate stuff and some private gigs as well.
JS: We’ll never say no to business, but we’re largely corporate-based with the balance social and wholesale. As far as events go, we do a lot, especially barbecues. We’re also starting to do more weddings. Some people don’t want to do the traditional banquet-hall wedding anymore. Last year we did 15 or 20 barbecue weddings.
MP: What’s your food philosophy?
JS: We’re definitely more of a comfort-food type of caterer, and people like the idea that most of it is fresh and local. They want to know things are being prepared fresh by a chef and we’re not just opening packages of food. And we don’t use MSG. Even our soups are made from scratch. It makes me sick to think about all the garbage that’s put into food to keep it fresh or alter its makeup.
MP: What’s your biggest pet peeve?
JS: People always lowball numbers. We did a barbecue last summer for a large corporate customer. They ordered food for 700 people, but once we were outside and cooking we noticed there were much more people there. The line-up went on for miles. At the end of the day, we did food for 1,500. My managers and I kept running back to our kitchen to get more food. It was the client’s issue, but we still got it done. Everyone ate and they were all happy.
MP: How important is it to stay cool under fire?
JS: Karen and I have theatre backgrounds and I always equate catering an event to putting on a production. You have certain call times where people are going to be eating, and I remember every theatre production I ever did, there was always some catastrophe going on backstage beforehand. But you always make it work, and at the end of the day, nobody in the audience is ever the wiser. Coolness, keeping a level head and being a problem solver are key.
MP: What kind of food are you known for?
JS: Our background is so diverse; we’re Greek on my dad’s side, my mom is Ukrainian/Hungarian/Jewish and my wife is from Finland. And many of our chefs are Indian and Polish. But we do a lot of cultural events, and we do cultural food well.
One year we catered some Caribana harbour cruises and we needed to do authentic jerk chicken. My executive chef is a Polish guy in his 50s, and he got together with some of our other cooks to come up with a recipe. During the event, I was walking around the boat and a little old lady pulls me aside and says, “Are you the owner?” I said, “No, I’m the caterer.” And she says, “Well, I can tell you have some really authentic cooks working for you, because this is the best jerk chicken I’ve ever had.” So I went and brought out my Polish chef, and she started laughing. She couldn’t believe it.
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