Murphy Hospitality Group, Charlottetown

Chef Domenic Serio was inspired to become a chef thanks to his grandmother’s Italian home cooking. She taught him that good food always starts with good ingredients. Ten years ago, chef Serio moved from Whitby, Ont to attend the Culinary Institute of Canada (CIC) at Holland College in Charlottetown, where he graduated from the culinary and pastry arts programs, before getting an applied degree in culinary operations.

He’s been the executive chef at The Inn at Bay Fortune near Souris, PEI, and, more recently, at The Brickhouse Kitchen and Bar in Charlottetown, a Murphy Hospitality Group restaurant.

In January, he became the head chef for the Murphy Group, and now oversees 13 restaurants, a bakery, an events and catering department and baking for two hotels.

Q Who do you look up to?

A Most importantly, I look up to God. He’s given me the tools for my success, and having strong faith really helps during stressful times. I also look up to chef Hans Anderegg [a chef instructor at the CIC]. He’s my mentor and always will be. And I look up to my nonna. She’s 90 and still has the energy of a 30 year old. I hope I can say the same at that age.

Q You’ve done a lot in your 10-year career. What are you most proud of?

A Becoming the youngest board member on the Canadian Federation of Chefs & Cooks national board of directors. I represent the entire east from Quebec to Newfoundland and Labrador. And I can’t forget working at the Inn at Bay Fortune.

Q What’s your favourite ingredient?

A My favourite ingredients are tongue, heart, brain, kidneys, intestines, etc. These foods really test you as a cook.

Q What kitchen tools can you not live without?

A It’s not really a tool, it’s a person: a great dishwasher. I treat my dishwashers like kings. They have the best meals and the best drinks (non- alcoholic). You can’t serve food without clean dishes. And who’s the last one to leave the kitchen? The dishwasher.

Q Can you share any cooking tips?

A Know where your food comes from. If it’s oysters, go tonging (oyster fishing). If it’s beef, tend a herd for a day. Know what you’re eating so you can fully respect it.

Q What’s your favourite cookbook?

A Pretty much all of PEI chef and Food Network host chef Michael Smith’s cookbooks. They’re just the best for using at home, and they’re easy to follow, with no mucking around.

Q What food do you love?

A Salad. I eat a lot of it. If you were to look in my fridge, you’d find carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes and greens.

Q What do you do when not in the kitchen?

A I’m an avid float fisherman. I enjoy going home to Ontario and fishing for trout, spending hours and hours waist deep in a river, hanging out with my brother.

Q If you could cook for any three people who would they be and why?

A My nonna (but she never lets me); Italian-American celebrity chef, Lidia Bastianich; and Canadian chef and Top Chef Canada head judge, Mark McEwan.

Q Is there a food you don’t like?

A Believe it or not, I have a strong dislike for cheese. Gouda’s the only one I will eat. Any other cheese has to be melted for me to eat it. And eel. I’m just not a fan of it.

Q Is there a particular dish you’ve cooked that you’re most proud of?

A Corned pork-tongue reuben with mustard espuma, quick kraut on rye and PEI’s chef Jeff McCourt’s Bluda Cheese from his Glasgow Glen Farm. It had a great flavour combination, and I love pork tongue.