Michael Mcleain

I'm a chef from Canada. I've worked all around North America for a number of years, 21 years in the business now. For the longest time, it was always just a job. I got good at this really young. I didn't really think about being a chef. It was always work. You could find a cooking job anywhere you traveled to; there was always one available. Then I thought, I'm good at it, I might as well just keep doing it. That was until I was 24, when I already worked at a Michelin-starred restaurant in NYC. It’s called 21 Club Restaurant and it's pretty dope. But it wasn't until I opened up the restaurant Swine, in Calgary, Alberta, when I was like: Shit! I can actually do stuff! I can actually do something for myself doing this! And then, shortly after that, I sobered up off and boosted my career up.

I got into cooking. I started as a dishwasher when I was 12 at a fine dining place, an Italian food place south of Calgary. Then, by the time I was 14, I was able to make things like fresh pasta. I learned about making sauces, soups, stocks, and butchering a full pig by then. I learned a lot really really young, and that sort of kick-started me on my way. Then I’d go back there in the summer whenever I came to Calgary, so I’d keep there working under them.

My first chef, Phil, he always told me, if you want to be a good chef, you have to work for good chefs. I always made it a point in my career, never to work on corporate spots or just where it's high production and no learning. So, I figured mom and pop shops, fine dining like always, scooping around the best spots in town wherever I was like, okay, this is where I want to work!, at the same time that I was playing music (drums).

I worked in the kitchen just for drug money and booze money back in those days. I mean, now I’m actually like making a decent wage saving up and I get to do things like I’m going to do a stage this coming winter in Paris, and I wouldn't be able to afford like that if I still doing drugs, yeah! They seem to coincide. Everybody loves food, everybody loves music, and this just went hand in hand with me, I went to a lot of places to have a stage like Daniel, Noma, and Falco. Falco was my favorite in Germany.