Beloved pastry chef Farzam Fallah is leaving his post at Richmond Station in Toronto and has his sights set on Hong Kong.
The 23 year old has contributed to the dessert movement with this revolving dessert menus and tasting dinners at the farm-to-table Richmond Station. Earlier this year, the Globe and Mail's Chris Nuttall-Smith profiled Fallah and within hours Fallah received an invite to go to Hong Kong. I had the chance to speak to him about how it all came together.
Chat spiced semi fredo with raspberries and popcorn muesli
So you got a call a few hours after the Globe article went live?
Five hours after the article was out, I received a message from Christopher Mark, one of the owners behind the Black Sheep Restaurants group in Hong Kong. He wanted me to come out. So I went to HK and spent a week there. They own 11 different restaurants, all different concepts and styles. I had the chance to experience the restaurants firsthand. But I wasn't ready to leave Toronto yet.
You love Toronto.
I do, I really like Toronto. Toronto has provided me with a very comfortable life, with friends, a great job at Richmond Station and great people. Why should I move away? I came back with the same feeling.
Then Terroir happened. You were one of the main presenters at the hospitality symposium in May?
Yes, I was. I was asked to present at Terroir and talk about designing desserts and plating. I met so many great people, it was a lot of fun. However, I was reaching a point where I faced all the challenges I wanted to face, and I was not being challenged at the level I wanted to be. I needed a kick in the butt.
Tofu pudding with green apple, matcha syrup and sesame
Fallah connected back with Mark and the two started to talk about the Black Sheep group of restaurants. In Mark's portfolio, he operates, among others, a New York-style Italian restaurant, a Barcelona-themed tapas bar, a Vietnamese bia hoi (beer hall), a Neapolitan pizzeria, and an American-style diner. Fallah's curiousity was piqued by the variety of cuisines represented, and also Mark's upcoming three projects. There are three in the works.
I'll be hitting the ground running, taking over three new projects with the group. I'll be playing with a variety of different cuisines. I won' be working on one thing. I'm really good at working on my feet, and taking this new project will allow me to spread my wings.
Fallah finishing one of his dessert plates.
Fallah (who previously worked at Origin, Enoteca Sociale, Ruby WatchCo) has garnered city-wide acclaim for his desserts at Richmond Station, they're some of the most beautiful plates in the city with deeply saturated colours and intricate sugar sculpturing. Fallah features four desserts on the menu at the restaurant, and they rotate every 30 days. Two years in, that's a lot of desserts. Currently Fallah is tweaking a dessert menu that will follow Richmond Station's ethos of local, farm-to-table cooking. And alongside, he'll have a daily chalkboard special where he'll be experimenting with dishes.
Are you coming back?
Toronto is my home, one big thing I talked about at Terroir was about chefs leaving their home cities. Chefs leave, they go somewhere, learn, grow, work, and then they come back and they open a restaurant in their home city. To grow their industry. I can't promise that I'm going to come back right away after I'm done in HK, I'm leaving the doors open to more travel and opportuntities. But eventually, this is where I want to open a shop.
Okay so what is this shop? What is Farzam's shop going to feature?
I can't tell you that. I have a dozen ideas right now and they're constantly changing.
Until the end of the year, Fallah will be featuring a chalkboard menu of new desserts at the restaurant.
Richmond Station, 1 Richmond St W., 647-748-1444
