Pickle Barrel
LYNN CRAWFORD is a passionate
person. It may sound cliche, but
Richmond Hill’s queen of the
kitchen loves wine, good
conversation, has a thing for Harley
Davidson motorcycles and is
obsessed with great food.
The Four Seasons executive chef and host of the Food Network’s Restaurant Makeover doesn’t just claim to be passionate, you can hear it in her voice. She’s genuinely excited about everything she’s doing and everything she’d like to do and she wants to tell you all about it.
I meet Crawford on the second floor of the Four Seasons Toronto outside Truffles, the only restaurant in Canada to win the CAA/AAA Five Diamond award 12 years in a row — Crawford has been at the helm for the last four. Her anniversary is this summer. “Chef Lynn,” as she’s called, is cheerful and casual and jokes that eating dinner with a stranger is, well, strange, but by the time our appetizers (Tuna Tartar and Scallops with white asparagus and potato risotto) are served at the Studio Café, the hotel’s bistro-style restaurant, we’re laughing and chatting like old friends.
“I’m happiest when I’m doing this,” she says. “I met you an hour ago and I love this, sharing stories, enjoying beautiful food and beautiful wine.”
It’s refreshing that someone who’s spent between 60 and 80 hours a week in a kitchen for the last 25 years still takes such pleasure in going out for dinner.
Crawford started her career in Toronto at restaurants like Winston’s on Adelaide Street West. But after a few years, she decided that the city was too small, and in order to continue her self-education as a chef, she had to move on.
In 1990, she headed to Montreal where she began her career at the Four Seasons. In the following years, she was sous-chef at the Studio Café in Toronto, executive chef of the Four Seasons in Vancouver and executive sous-chef at Fifty-Seven Fifty-Seven at the Four Seasons New York. Then finally she was offered executive chef at the Four Seasons in Toronto.
“I was overwhelmed with emotion at the idea of coming back home,” she admits.
One of her most interesting posts came in 1991. After only a year in Montreal, Crawford was given the opportunity to help launch the Four Seasons Nevis, one of the first Four Seasons outside of North America.
“What an incredible experience,” she says of working with the kitchen staff on the 32-square-mile Caribbean island. “We were teaching and educating them on things we take for granted, like Parpadelle,” she says of the long, wide pasta noodle. Pointing to the word while scanning the menu, she continues. “They had no clue what parpadelle was!” She pauses. “Parpadelle with Sweet Corn, Mushrooms, Chevre Snow. . . I think I’ll have that! What are you going to have?” she asks.
“I was completely amazed at the creativity that Lynn has. She’s a juggernaut of energy,” says executive sous-chef Robert Bartley at Four Seasons Toronto. Bartley started as a junior sous-chef around the same time Crawford came on board and he credits her support as the force that helped him move up in the kitchen. Chef Lynn’s kitchen, he says, is not a typical hierarchy. “She doesn’t dictate,” he says. “We’re a team. We have a leader, but she’s right in there with us.”
Which doesn’t mean that she’s a pushover. Instead, Crawford pushes — although gently — for everything that comes out of her kitchen to be as close to perfection as possible.
“I will never put up with second best. If I’m not pushing that idea and those flavours and not being the best that I can possibly be, then why even bother with being a chef?”
It’s that enthusiasm that attracted the producers from Restaurant Makeover.
“She respects food and the art and technique of preparing it. She strives for perfection and will not tolerate anything inferior to it. So if you have anything powdered or dehydrated on your shelf. . . look out!” says producer Shaam Makam.
Crawford is one of five chefs who co-host the show with a slew of world-class interior designers. Each week the show’s team makes over both the design and the menu of a restaurant in need. “And what a gift it is for the restaurant owner,” gushes Crawford. “My role is to inspire the chef, to teach, educate and make a menu that’s going to work for them. That’s the challenge,” she says, although she admits that with over 20 years of experience, creating successful menus is no longer that challenging.
But she still loves doing it. Even though originally the idea of scripted television turned her off. “I thought, ‘me, reading and acting?’ I don’t know,” she says. “But it’s real. From the moment we go in the door of that restaurant to the moment we leave, it’s real.” And despite her doubts, Makam says that Crawford makes great television. “When Lynn touches, smells and tastes the food her passion transcends the screen. The audience members get to taste the food without it touching their lips.”
While Crawford is building a fan base from her work on Restaurant Makeover and special guest appearances on CityTv’s Breakfast Television, she shies away from the “celebrity chef” label. When I tell her that my friends watch the show and love her, she actually looks embarrassed. “Celebrity? No, that’s crazy! It’s very flattering. I’m blown away, but really, I’m just Chef Lynn.”
Another distinction she chooses not to dwell on is that she is the only female executive chef within the Four Seasons chain — 70 resorts worldwide. “Being a woman has nothing to do with it,” she says.
“Anybody who wants to cook and it’s in their heart and soul, that’s what’s important to me.”
Crawford comes from a family of butchers so her career in culinary arts should come as no surprise, but it wasn’t until university that she even considered it as a profession.
“I would cook for my friends and do food and wine pairings,” she says. “Think about your first years of university, I mean not a lot of my friends were enjoying wine.”
So when a pal suggested she take up cooking as more than a hobby, Crawford started reading everything she could and decided to apply to George Brown.
Crawford, however, confesses that her first foray into food preparation wasn’t in university. It was peeling potatoes as a kid, which she actually enjoyed — and still does. Crawford lived in Richmond Hill as a teenager and attended Richmond Hill High School. She says that because both her parents worked, she’d come home from school and start dinner. Her job was to get the mashed potatoes started.
“Give a chef a bag of potatoes and they’re happy,” she says.
Another favourite activity of Crawford’s is riding motorcycles. Between courses she receives a call from a friend at Harley Davidson offering her a low-rider for three days. “How exciting is that!” she says with the same energy she reserves for food talk.
For dessert, Crawford recommends the cheesecake, a recipe she’s perfected over the years. It’s delicious, and she looks pleased with my reaction. It’s important to her that people enjoy food — and not just the food she’s prepared.
“There’s like this food revolution
going on. Everybody wants food.
Everybody loves it. They’re curious
about it. They want to learn,” she
says. “I love people. I love food and I
love sharing so if that’s my role and
that’s my future then that’s great.” 
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