Yotam Ottolenghi Answers Vancouverites’ Questions Ahead of His Chan Centre Appearance

Scout was recently offered the opportunity to interview British chef and author Yotam Ottolenghi ahead of his visit to Vancouver this February, where he will host an evening built around cooking, conversation, and the honest realities of feeding people.

At Scout, our work centres on the people behind the food. We care about growers, cooks, servers and dishwashers, and about the everyday exchange that happens around a table. Given how many chefs and farmers admire Ottolenghi, we held back on flooding him with our own questions. Instead, we turned to a handful of our friends who shape the world we cover. The questions ahead come partly from us, as well as from them…

We all know the cliché about avoiding politics at the dinner table, yet food is inseparable from the bigger picture of politics. What’s been on your mind lately when it comes to food and what kinds of dinner table or party conversations do you think we should be having? (Thalia Stopa, Contributing Editor, Scout Magazine)

Yotam Ottolenghi: Food and politics are always intertwined. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the access people have to ingredients, skills and the resources they need to cook well. At my dinner table, we often talk about what’s available and the best way of cooking with it. At the moment, there’s a lot of apple chat, and also cabbage. I try to tell my kids that they need to reduce waste and get to know the factors around food a little more: agriculture and changes to our climate. I try…

Food can also act as a balm. What foods are you turning to for comfort these days? (Thalia Stopa, Contributing Editor, Scout Magazine)

Yotam Ottolenghi: For me, comfort comes in two forms: Brothy things and cheesy things. Well, not strictly; comfort can mean many things, but lately it’s been big bowls of barley soup with greens wilted in at the end, and anything involving melted cheese on toast. My kids and I have been experimenting with Spanish jamon, mayo, manchego and pickle. We toast it in a pan and then stuff it with shoestring chips.

What is your favourite radicchio to prepare, and how do you like to work with it? (Mark Cormier, Farmer, Glorious Organics Farm, Aldergrove, BC)

Yotam Ottolenghi: I’m fond of Radicchio di Treviso. It has elegance and a gentle bitterness so it’s to balance with other ingredients. I love to either grill it and dress it with something anchovy-based and lemony, or keep it raw and slice it thinly into a salad with tangerines, walnuts and a tahini-honey dressing. Bitterness plus brightness!

What advice would you give chefs from different cultural backgrounds who want to adapt their cooking to local produce and build more sustainable practices? (Katy Cheung, Sous Chef at Burdock & Co.)
Try finding more about the local landscape by talking to sellers and producers. Every region has flavours that want to be celebrated. And embrace limits: constraints often lead to more sustainable, more original cooking. Local produce doesn’t restrict creativity. There is so much you can do with good, basic, local ingredients.

Dead or alive, whom would you most want to share a meal with? (Katy Cheung, Sous Chef at Burdock & Co.)
Jane Goodall, who passed away recently, seems to me to be the most interesting dinner guest, dead or alive. Her humility, patience, and lifelong commitment to understanding the world are good enough reasons; but, beyond all that, her incredible knowledge of chimps. I’d love to know more!

Let’s play “Kiss Marry Kill” with a classic mirepoix: onion, celery, carrot. Which one are you kissing, which one are you marrying, and which one are you killing off? (Chef Matt Gostelow and Sous Chef Lydia Lambert-Bailey, The Acorn Restaurant)

Yotam Ottolenghi: I would marry the onion – it’s dependable, multi-layered and always in need. I would kiss the carrot – sweet, charming, delightful in small bursts. And sadly, I must kill the celery, even though I do love it. But someone has to and celery had it coming.

As you’ll be in Vancouver in late February, could you share a simple, season-appropriate recipe that works with the ingredients available at that time?

Yotam Ottolenghi: In early March you’re still very much in the land of roots, and I love that period because it asks you to be a bit resourceful. One dish I often make is a warm roasted carrot and parsnip salad with a chilli dressing. You roast the roots with a bit of olive oil until they’re deeply caramelised, then toss them with a sharp chilli vinaigrette, using chopped up mild chilli and some dried chilli flakes, garlic, mustard, vinegar, olive oil and a bit of maple syrup. I toss it all together with arugula or another similar bitter leaf.

EVENT DETAILS

Yotam Ottolenghi will appear at The Chan Centre on Wednesday, February 25th, 2026, at 7:30pm. For a sense of how the evening will unfold, The Chan Centre describes it this way: “Seated between an armchair and a cooking station, Ottolenghi unpacks a “Mary Poppins” bag of ingredients while delving into the emotional and practical challenges home cooks face, from impressing in-laws to accommodating picky eaters. The evening moves between cooking demonstrations, humorous audience polls, and confessional slides drawn from real followers’ dilemmas.”

Given Ottolenghi’s following, and the format of the night, tickets are likely to disappear quickly. If you are planning to attend, securing a seat early is a good idea. TICKETS HERE.