Small plates full of big, bold flavours are what Chef Colin Penttinen strives to create on the menu at JAROblue. He combines his love of local ingredients with a creative mindset to produce flavourful dishes.
Sometimes simple things can motivate a career and in Chef Penttinen's case he says, "a lack of interest in going to university and always loving to make gravy were probably my initial pushers. I enjoyed doing that. I worked with some flour making the gravy and that aspect of that very light and super simple thing to do just intrigued me enough to start me cooking."
Penttinen started like many people in Alberta by taking the culinary arts program at SAIT but his real training began as he worked through restaurants first in Edmonton and then in Calgary. However, he says that the restaurant that shaped him as a chef the most was the River Café where he worked for five years before landing his current position at JAROblue.
When it comes to his approach to cooking Chef Penttinen says, "I believe in respecting the ingredients. If you have a really great tomato don't mess with the tomato too much. Give it a little dash of salt, present it so it looks beautiful which will then match the gorgeous flavour of it."
The chef adds, "I like simple things that are easily understood by people. I don't like freaking people out but I like representing things people haven't seen before. We sell octopus on our menu and we prepare it differently from any other place in the city for sure. It looks neat, it's exciting and it's really quite simple for people to eat."
Respecting the Local
As part of Chef Penttinen's emphasis on local ingredients he has built relationships with many local suppliers. For him this personal contact with producers is crucial. He explains, "I think that ultimately with anything local you just have to talk to the farmer. You just have to talk to the guy or the woman who's pulling the roots out of the ground. You have to personable with them, they need to know your first name, they need to know where you've worked."
There are many local suppliers whom Penttinen works with including Gerrit and Janet at Driview Farms who raise lamb and provide him with eggs, Rosemary at Poplar Bluff Farms who supplies him with his root vegetables, Tim Sutherland at North Sea Fish, Christine from Spring Creek Ranch supplies him with beef, he gets sprouts and miniature plants from a grower named Jay Likely. His supplier, Chris, at Sysco was someone that Penttinen mentioned as going above and beyond the usual duties at a large supplier. He also sources some hard-to-find ingredients from Bite Groceteria and I3 Imports.
Chef Penttinen says that he changes the menu frequently to as new ideas evolve or new products come into the restaurant. He points out, "We try to reprint the menu every week and a half or two weeks. It doesn't mean we're flipping the entire menu it just means that we've come up with a better idea or someone's brought me some sort of produce that's just better. It's an offshoot thing and I take it and I figure out something to do with it."
This spontaneous, creative approach carries over to how Penttinen creates new dishes for JAROblue. He explains, "A lot of the time,honestly, it comes down to what I get. I get the product in, I make a feature and if I really love the feature then boom it's on the menu. Its often a straight-up fluke. We're constantly cooking, we're constantly feeding each other and our employees and that's where the experimenting and mixing different flavours together happens."
For example, he says, "You might wake up that day and say, 'I really want a raw root vegetable salad' so you have to find out a way to present roots on a plate with a proper vinaigrette, make it edible and make it attractive."
Chef Penttinen also hosts unique "guerilla dinners" where he and one of his cook friends create an event, tell people the price point and open up ten seats for purchase. Each event is different and Penttinen says, "We'll send out the location three hours prior to dinner and they cruise out there and we'll serve them everything and anything we can think of. There's usually a theme or idea of some kind. As we're serving them we're providing entertainment and knowledge and giving them the opportunity to learn."
Teaching Moments
In fact, teaching others about food is a crucial part of being a chef for Penttinen. He explains, "As a chef working with other cooks I think you have to be teaching constantly and you have to be listening and respecting what they say."
Not only does Chef Penttinen enjoy educating his cooks but he also enjoys educating his customers. He says, "I enjoy the opportunity to go and speak to customers, tell them about the lamb for example, tell them about the guy who grew the lamb and I really try to get people connected to the food. It makes them care about it and it satisfies me because they have more respect for the product. A better educated client is a better diner."
In terms of his favourite ingredients to work with Penttinen says, "I love root vegetables, I love all kinds of greens across the board. Right now I'm on a bit of a kick about swordfish which is an odd one. It's caught just off of Hawaii which is further away than I would generally purchase things from but I enjoy the fact that it has some weight to it and stern, sturdy flesh that takes on flavours really well."
A Flexible Kitchen
Each chef has a different approach to running a kitchen. In Penttinen's case he says, "I want to get to a finished product that's good. It can be great, it can't ever be bad but it must be good. I allow people to express themselves and themselves. I try to be as professional as I can be. I am quite comfortable with the staff I have and they respect my personality and they understand my personal flexibilities."
He adds, "I treat them as well as I possibly can. It's more about having people who are working because they love food and you have to cradle that ultimately."
Chef Penttinen adds a special mention of his "right hand man" Mark Forsyth. He says, "I haven't titled him as my sous chef but fundamentally that's exactly what he is. He's got my back and he's had my back for the last eight months. He's also the bread man. He's showed me how to bake bread. He deals with anything sweet as well."
The philosophy of JAROblue is something that matches well with Chef Penttinen's personal style. He says, "It's brilliant. I am definitely a guy who loves to go to a restaurant and snack. This place fits me absolutely gorgeously and I never had that expectation of it but it came to be. Its been a comfortable transition for me."
For more information on JAROblue please visit: http://jaroblue.com
This interview with Colin Penttinen was conducted on Sept. 30, 2011 via telephone.
