Chef Michael Hunter fights for the ‘right to eat wild food’
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Summary
If you're a fan of meat, this episode is for you! Chef Michael Hunter, co-owner of Antler Kitchen and Bar and author of The Hunt, Fish and Forage Cookbook, joins us to talk about his approach to meat and the carnivore diet.
Transcript
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hi i'm anthony fury thanks for joining us for the latest episode of full comment
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don't forget to subscribe to learn whenever a new episode drops today's guest is chef michael
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hunter co-owner of antler kitchen and bar he's a hunter he's a forager and his latest book
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is the hunter chef hunt fish and forage in over 100 recipes if you're a fan of meat let me tell
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you this episode is for you and if you're not a fan of meat well uh we'll be talking about you as
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well michael thanks so much for joining us welcome to the show thanks for having me yeah it's great to
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have you on let me start here i'm seeing a lot of headlines that well make me think that meat is
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kind of under siege almost now more than ever what is your sense of that um there's definitely a trend
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about plant-based foods and and um and products um you know i think under siege might be a bit
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dramatic but i don't know you know i don't follow the meat news i guess as much as you do so um
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i might be out of the loop yeah well well let me put a couple i guess questions to you because i know
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you're focused on on doing what you do and then there are other people who are focused in you know
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going in other directions here uh there was a headline in in bloomberg news other news outlets
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saying that uh moving forward uh beef is going to be considered a luxury item this is the head of a
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big european meat processor speaking and he said beef is not going to be super climate friendly so the
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basic idea about emissions and taxes and so forth what are your thoughts as someone who who cooks a
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whole lot of meat uh obviously you know your recipes in your cookbook and your restaurant as well
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uh what what do you think when you when you hear that sort of news um you know in in the restaurant
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industry i can definitely tell you that i have seen the uh the meat prices climbing um you know i think
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that has uh a wide range of factors um you know increasing costs of of uh fuel grain uh labor um you know
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some of these main things are really driving the cost up um you know i i i do think our system is a little
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broken um you know our focus has been on you know factory farming um you know animal products and
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vegetable products so you know i think really the factory farming industry is being attacked um you know
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on the meat side and um you know the the idea of replacing it with um you know plant-based products
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that are also factory farmed i don't think is the answer either hmm so you're talking about the beyond
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meat type products i know there's been a lot of discussion of oh well hold on a second this is still
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processed food and the talk about the degree of of salt and other content that's in it yes
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so when you talk about about your approach to meat in general in your cookbook what you're doing in
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your kitchen how would you articulate your philosophy of of i i don't know if the carnivore diet is the
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right way to phrase it but what is your general approach uh to meat and sustainability with meat and
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and just meat as a culinary experience um i think there needs to be more of a focus on you know getting
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back to the family run sustainable farm um you know a lot of my diet at home is wild food uh a lot of
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that is hunted meat um and wild fish um but we also have a pretty large uh vegetable garden for living in
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um the city of toronto um you know we you know we're in uh you know the northwest part of the city
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um you know we don't have a huge backyard but you know uh i'd say maybe a quarter of my backyard is
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taken up by garden so um you know i know a lot of people that live in buildings don't have that luxury
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um but i think there needs to be more of a focus on um you know growing your own food um you know
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focusing on um on food that is sustainably grown whether that's in a farm
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uh or sustainably fished um you know or or sustainably harvested um you know from the wild
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uh and you know move away from factory farming because i think it's it's factory farming as a
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whole that's that's creating um you know a lot of these um you know environmental problems and
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and other problems in our society i mean you're really talking about sustainability issues
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and yet you have had people who have protested you you have activists protest outside your
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restaurant because of your commitment to cooking with meat and yet what i'm hearing from you is a
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very sort of moderate approach uh to involving meat in the diet i guess these are people who are
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just flat out opposed to eating meat in general here but but one would think there's a bit of a
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middle ground i mean you seem to be talking about almost a middle ground here um you know and i think
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that the people protesting my restaurant were not interested in having an intellectual dialogue
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with me right um even though we offered that on several occasions um you know because they they had
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one agenda and they weren't interested in any discussions about um you know other alternatives or
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ways to meet in the middle it was uh you know go vegan or go home um and you know for me that
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doesn't inspire uh change it didn't inspire um you know really anyone to join their cause uh and for
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them which they learned it it uh created the opposite effect and turned you know most people against
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them so um you know if they wanted to talk about uh you know animal rights reform when it came came to
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farming or uh you know slaughterhouses and abattoirs and uh you know government policies around the
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treatment of animals you know i would have uh supported their cause but um when they try and
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force the whole world to to you know have a vegan diet um that is you know sustained from
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sustained uh factory farming and monocropping things like soy and um using palm oil and things that are
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really destructive for the planet um you know i kind of think they're pretty misguided yeah that's
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interesting so this happened back in 2018 and it was something of a something of a bit of a
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cultural moment i would say at least people who live in the gta would go oh yeah i remember that
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it was sort of in the news and there's a lot of headlines vegans came to protest uh your restaurant
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antler and then you weren't going to put up with it so when you knew they were coming you sort of
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uh very uh very elaborately carved meat right in the front window and they had to be visually
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subjected to it and i guess that was triggering for them and and one one phrase that you said in one of
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those stories as i was rereading it really speaks out to me you said we won't change meaning well
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i'm still going to do this i don't care if you guys are protesting and well i know the pandemic
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has been very difficult for restaurants we'll talk about that in a few minutes but in general it seems
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like you haven't changed you're still there you're still standing people are still coming to the
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restaurant um you know we really believe in what we do and we think we're doing the right thing
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um uh we buy you know all of our products uh from little suppliers to family-run farms um you know
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canadian companies it's it's very important to us um and it's what we believe in and um you know
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we're we're passionate about it we we try and do it you know uh the best we can um you know and it's
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it's proving to work for us tell me a little bit more about what you're saying there about about
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soy based items and so forth that are actually uh not so great for the system not so great for the
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planet the certain things that are connected with a vegan diet um well i'm not an expert on the
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subject i've done a little bit of uh you know reading and you know my own research on it um but
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you know monocrop farming uh is proven to be bad for the environment when you take you know hundreds of
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thousands or you know millions of acres uh and cover it with the same type of plant um it's bad
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for the environment and um you know old practices of farming uh you know utilizes crop rotations and
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you know smaller uh plots of farms that are constantly being rotated and you know fertilized
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with natural products um and you know when you monocrop uh you know large services of land you
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come in contact with all kinds of uh you know horticultural problems with uh insects um and they
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need to use um pesticides and um you know all kinds of uh you know growth hormones and for chemical
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fertilizers for the plants and things like that um so it's just my understanding that um you know
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these types of of farming methods that are being utilized to create um you know soy based products
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and and and uh these you know alternative proteins um is actually you know bad for the environment and
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like i said i'm not i'm not an expert on the subject but i know a little bit about it and um you know
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i don't think that a complete switch um you know to to to factory farming um you know vegetable
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products for alternative proteins is really the best answer either michael what's your sense of
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what the state of hunting foraging is across ontario across canada when it comes to people doing it to
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provide uh food for themselves um i'd have to look at the statistics but what i i have heard that
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statistically the numbers of new hunters um is going up um there are there is numbers available with the
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um uh miniature ministry of natural resources uh where we could get exact numbers but um from what i
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understand the um the number of new hunters wanting to get their hunting license is on the rise
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um i think the pandemic uh created a lot of awareness for people um to really kind of uh get more concerned
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about where their food is coming from and what they would do if our supply chains collapsed um you know
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you saw with the you know the toilet paper buying frenzy people wanted security um you know it was a
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psychological thing that people wanted some security um with you know they heard toilet paper was running
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out and uh another thing that you couldn't purchase at the store was um glass canning jars with the metal
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twist lid uh for preserving you know peaches and tomato sauce and canned goods uh to can at home uh it was
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almost impossible to find these jars because people were uh frantically buying things to preserve food
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um so i think there there definitely is a shift um you know back to um where we came from which is
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hunting and gathering i think people are a bit more interested in it um you know mushroom foraging
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is becoming really popular um there's all kinds of uh you know social media groups and clubs that are
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popping up uh you know on facebook and sites like that where you can uh you know just join up uh sign
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up to learn about um foraging um you know it's it's in the restaurant industry i've i've seen it with
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other restaurants in toronto at least um you know a lot more focus on uh wild game ingredients um and
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foraged uh mushrooms wild leeks um you know people are really seem to be uh moving back towards wanting to
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uh uh you know be a part of uh you know their their food cycle in what way do you think this
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is something that that can be broad-based and in what way is it a sort of boutique niche thing that
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that that only you know a certain type of person can take up one thing that i find really interesting
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we have a couple jamie oliver cookbooks at home and i was really intrigued to learn about how he's
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really big on the movement of just getting people in england i guess people everywhere in the world but
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particularly england saying you know we want you know regular folks of all walks of life all income
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brackets all jobs learning how to cook healthy basic meals at home and i gotta say as someone who
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is not a very good cook i'm like this is kind of cool like i i find it not intimidating to get one of
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those four ingredient cookbooks and work your way up and just kind of learn and and i find it kind of
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empowering and so forth and i feel like jamie oliver feels he's made some momentum on that but you know
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it's still a a difficult push how is that situation unfolding do you think in canada um like i said i
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think i think people are really becoming more interested about where their food's coming from
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i think um you know with uh the pandemic and an illness that's out there i think people might be
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focusing more about uh eating healthier and living a healthier lifestyle um you know i think as a chef
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um we're always searching for you know for the best tasting ingredients to start with and um it makes
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my job a lot easier if i'm starting out with uh you know an amazing tasting uh tomato um you know
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that's grown in ontario or grown in my backyard uh that's ripened in the sun and has never been in
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the fridge it is is you know wonderfully sweet versus something that's uh you know pale pink and
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you know ripened on a truck uh from mexico to toronto so um i i think you know um for people
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that that are you know new to cooking or learning to cook or you're not as confident in the kitchen
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i think uh you know starting with you know really great ingredients um in the beginning is is a great
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help um to making your food taste good because you have to do little you know you don't have to do a lot
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to it right right michael i want to go back to something you were saying about about hunters
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hunters in ontario hunters across canada because when you mentioned vegans protesting your restaurant
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you said well i'm not so sure if they were actually interested in having sort of a moderate
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conversation and when you talk about hunters i also think of guys with guns guys with guns going
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out into the woods firing guns and you also go hold on a second that itself is a conversation that
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gets very heated politicized it it always factors into canadian federal elections it did the last time
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around and very similar perhaps around what you're saying about the vegan versus meat you can have
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guns versus anti-guns and yet you were simply talking about hunting culture which invariably
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you know a lot of it will involve uh firearms as as sustainability and you know being aware of uh you
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know what you're putting into your body in terms of where you're sourcing your food from and so forth
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how does that all factor into this i mean what would you say to people who right away just say no guns
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and that is how they kind of uh put the wall up with that conversation um it's hard to have those
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conversations with people that that don't want to have the conversation there's um you know especially
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people in cities uh they don't like guns uh because guns are the root of a lot of the violence that's in
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the city right um you know the thing that a lot of people don't understand is that um the violence
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that's happening in the city with with guns uh is gun crime and uh these guns are being obtained
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through illegal sources um and a lot of people don't actually know uh how strict our gun control
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is in canada for for guys like me that want to go out and you know buy a shotgun to hunt uh ducks and
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geese or to buy a rifle to go shoot a deer um it's it's a very uh difficult process to go through
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um so i think you know really uh highlighting you know what our licensing system is like in canada
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um and you know talking to people about you know what i need to do to obtain a firearms license
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is quite rigorous um but you know people that don't want to have the conversation just believe
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guns are bad it's hard to educate those people and have an intellectual dialogue because they just
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don't want to hear it guns are bad um and you know that's how they feel and and not you know not a
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lot will will change that i think um you know until until something's done about the gun crime that's
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that's in this country um you know the licensing system you know i think it'd be interesting to talk
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about a little bit um uh you have to take a firearms training and safety course and it's it's a
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one day course um where it's a written and practical test in front of an instructor uh for
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safety and you need to know all the laws about you know storage transportation um there's handling of
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the firearms working with an instructor proving that you are safe and can handle a firearm um
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and then there's the actual application so once you pass these two tests you get an application to
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take home uh you fill out you need uh references um you know someone that's known you for several
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years um you actually need your spouse to sign off on your application and put your phone number
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um and if you live alone uh you have to list uh a previous spouse or you know husband or you know
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boyfriend or girlfriend um and lists their phone number in the last two years lots of hoops to jump
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through and lots of hoops and from my experience the rcmp actually call your spouse or call your
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uh you know ex-wife or girlfriend uh and speak to them and you know until you go through all these
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processes you can't get a firearms license um and without a firearms license you can't go into a
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store or and even look at and the firearms or hold them and and you know let alone try and even
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purchase one so um you know i think there needs to be a lot of uh education and awareness around
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firearms licensing in canada um for people to actually you know understand um you know what's
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going on and and and the fact that you know the crime that's in toronto and you know canada really
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needs to be addressed um to solve the issues because you know creating more laws for guys like me
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um and it's not really it's not helping and statistically it's showing that it's not helping
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our gun crime in the city one interesting other sort of curious confluence of issues is that when
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it comes to a lot of hunting uh a lot of first nations people throughout the country a lot of
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indigenous persons uh they like to do different uh ways of sourcing their meat which again kind of
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butts up against people's perspectives towards uh hunting and you know other political issues as
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well do you have any thoughts on on on how first nations in canada are going about uh procuring their
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meat no i you know i think that you know i use a lot of the same methods that uh you know uh
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indigenous cultures are using for hunting now i also hunt with a bow and arrow uh crossbow um i use
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shotguns and rifles and and things like that to uh to source my meat um and you know it's you know
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historically um you know we're all descendants of hunters and i think it is you know foolish um to
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think that hunting is is bad and we need to stop hunting and um you know it has you know uh you
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know traditional and historical kind of values that uh um i i think you know need to be cherished and
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and held on to as opposed to um you know pushed away that's a really interesting way of looking at
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it when you talk about uh going out and getting your own meat is this just for personal consumption
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or is this some of the meat that your customers uh eat at antler no so it's actually illegal for me to
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sell meat uh that i've hunted myself so no way um there's some public health laws around that and
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then there's also um uh laws uh against the sale of uh wild game what do you think about that because
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just uh recently for thanksgiving weekend we had a brisket that came from a cow we were up at a rural
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property that came from a cow that had been across the street now of course the proper i'm gonna get
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my terms wrong but the proper abattoir stuff was done and i know there's rules and protocols and
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it happened and so forth but then the meat was shared with us and we ate the meat and it's also
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kind of like okay and what if it had happened to have been a restaurant and you know we charge for
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all of that and so forth i mean i i find that kind of odd like it's nice to know there's rules that
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someone just can't randomly you know get any roadkill they find and slap it on a table and so forth but
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you're also a professional so i would think that surely there should be a framework where
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uh if you i don't know if you want to but a framework where you could actually provide the
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meat that you've hunted for customers yeah and i think you know for me um that would that would be
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something i would i would love to do um you know there needs to be a lot of regulations in place to
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make sure um that uh it's you know it would be sustainable and um you know a big part of uh of
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hunting is conservation and making sure that um you know the wildlife animals that were
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hunting and and consuming they're there for our kids uh for the next generation um
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you know there are places in the world where you can hunt uh and sell meat uh you know europe for
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example um newfoundland in our own country you're allowed to um you know shoot a moose and and sell it
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in the restaurant um uh it's you know it's something that you know i would like to see happen
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in ontario um but it would need a lot of of uh of regulations and and i think a little bit of
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research to to figure out you know the best way to implement it um you know because i think everyone
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has the right to eat wild food whether it's uh wild salmon uh you know wild mushrooms these things
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are available for sale um and you know unless you are a hunter or a friend of a hunter like i can gift
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wild game meat to a friend or family member um but you know if you don't have a direct connection
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to a hunter um you really can't you can't find wild game anywhere so i think i think people have a right
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uh you know to be able to eat you know wild food in its natural state um but i i just think there
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needs to be uh you know a lot of rules and regulations around how that would happen one of
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my colleagues said you're talking to michael hunter you gotta ask what he thinks about all this craze
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of eating bugs and i said what do you mean there's not a craze of eating bugs and he said yes people
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are trying to get us to eat it every single day there's a mad push for it i said no there's not
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he said google news at google and i said okay fine and i found out just in the past couple days
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uh michael i see bbc headline the edible insects coming to a supermarket near you and then there's an
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opinion column uh more people are eating bugs but is it ethical to farm insects for food
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and i got to wondering eating bugs i mean i'm sure the vegans aren't doing it but it's also not
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what you think of when you think of a meatatarian you know they don't have the the mcbug yet at
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mcdonald's what is your perspective on eating insects um i don't have any interest in it to be honest
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with you it's uh good me too it uh it you know it seems like a trendy fad kind of a diet um you know
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is it going to solve world hunger i don't know it's um you know is it a great source of protein
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that uh you know could definitely help aid um you know maybe some uh some areas of the world that
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need protein um you know maybe i i don't know um but it's definitely not something that i'm
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passionate about or um you know even i'm interested in you know i've i've eaten it like a crispy barbecue
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kind of flavored grasshopper that kind of tastes like potato chips but um you know it was more of
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a kind of a joke uh kind of a gift or something but um you know it it's not something that i'm
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you know interested or passionate about let's talk about the pandemic now covid19 how it affected
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your restaurant specifically how it's affecting the restaurant industry and perhaps the future of it i
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know you've been vocal on this vocal on social media talking to media outlets about it
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obviously march 2020 things were shut down your business was closed by order of government for
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quite some time and by some indicators well i know ontario where you're based has had some of the
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strictest covid rules really in the world uh depending on you know particular parameters
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and yet we're in october 2021 and and your business actually still faces some restrictions what has the
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past year and a half been like for you um it's been absolutely devastating um you know emotionally
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mentally um you know from a physical standpoint of the restaurant devastating um it uh it has just
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been an absolute nightmare um you know i never thought i would see the day where uh you know the
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government steps in and tells us we can't run our business and and make a living um so i'm i'm uh you
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know beyond frustrated with uh the ontario government um and its treatment of the restaurant industry
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um you know to this day uh you know the current news that uh sports venues are opening back up to full
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capacity and the restaurants within these sports venues in the air canada center and skydome are able
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to open to full capacity but my restaurant uh on dundas that seats 45 people is limited to half capacity
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um you know we cannot make a living off 22 seats um and it is just uh you know frustrating uh you know
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beyond belief it's really quite something that the restaurant industry in ontario in particular so
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hard hit for so long and i know there were moments when people thought uh there would be uh breakthroughs
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and so forth the government turns around and they say well no we we did we did well by always telling
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people oh order takeout and go do pickup and get delivery and so forth support local and so forth
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did you feel like that helped our takeout sales um were a fraction of our uh in-house you know dining
00:26:03.260
room sales i don't um i think people are willing to spend the same kind of money they are uh for takeout
00:26:11.740
that they are when they go out um alcohol uh you know takeout alcohol sales was uh almost non-existent
00:26:20.060
um you know because of our you know liquor laws i have to buy uh you know spirits from the lcbo
00:26:29.900
um as a restaurant i don't get a discount you know a volume discount or uh you know any kind of a
00:26:35.660
discount as a restaurant buying liquor from the lcbo um so then to try and uh mark it up to make a
00:26:42.220
living um you know nobody wants to spend more for alcohol when they can get it for cheaper at the lcbo so
00:26:49.740
um you know that didn't really work um you know there are some wines that we can buy directly from the
00:26:56.780
that's not available at the lcbo which we tried to push um but you know we're not moving the same
00:27:03.020
volume um that we would if people were dining in-house um you know for us game is not something
00:27:12.140
people cook at home i think you know that's one of the reasons why we're so successful and busy at
00:27:16.380
the restaurant is because game is something that you know people don't cook at home and it's it's it's
00:27:21.260
something kind of new that they can't they can't get it home and that's why they come to antler so
00:27:26.060
um you know uh take out you know stuff for for people to take home just for us wasn't um i don't
00:27:33.420
think was as popular um and it yeah it definitely you know when we looked at our sales it was literally
00:27:42.540
like um uh you know like a tenth of our of our sales um you know pre-pandemic you know versus takeout sales
00:27:52.060
perspectives have been so varied this past year and a half there are some people who have basically
00:27:55.900
said uh you know they wanted things to be open for it to basically be you know buyer beware make
00:28:01.260
your own informed choice choice i certainly lean towards that you know okay if people feel they
00:28:05.500
need to stay home they can stay home and let other people uh make their sort of shopping and culinary
00:28:10.540
choices uh informed and and you know take personal responsibility and i understand there'll be
00:28:15.420
precautions in place so i was supportive of of restaurants and all facilities being open much
00:28:20.140
sooner and much larger other people saying oh no you know we can't do it it's not safe and i even saw
00:28:24.460
people in the restaurant industry were of were of split view i understand there were people
00:28:28.300
restaurateurs who were didn't even want to open their own restaurants and so forth and you go okay
00:28:32.220
find each to their own yeah how did you feel about just the the timing of it all because i appreciate
00:28:37.740
you're still frustrated with those capacity restrictions right now and i get you they're completely
00:28:41.340
indefensible i don't know why the government's doing that at the same time uh there were periods where
00:28:46.060
people were really split on all of it what would you have liked to have seen happen uh differently
00:28:52.220
um well for me i think it really started with our federal government um i was in saudi arabia uh
00:29:00.780
cooking with a friend um for a festival when when covid hit and i was just completely shocked by the
00:29:10.460
lack of action by our government um when i landed in saudi arabia at the end of february um 2019 i
00:29:19.820
was greeted with temperature checks uh a vigorous passport check of the countries i had been the
00:29:25.820
reasons i was traveling why i was there um there were police checkpoints when i was leaving the airport
00:29:34.220
it was very strict all for coven this was all for covert measures and this was just at the end of
00:29:40.220
february so this wasn't even march um you know when it was really full-blown um when i got back to
00:29:47.020
canada i think i arrived about a week before the uh shutdown and quarantine measures when i got back to
00:29:53.100
canada uh i think it was march 10th or somewhere around there um uh there was zero uh covert measures at the
00:30:02.620
airport at uh yyz pearson other than a piece of paper with a checkmark box uh that said have you been
00:30:09.740
to wuhan china so um i think there was uh you know a massively delayed uh covid response in canada for
00:30:21.740
travelers i think we let a lot of the uh cases in uh you know with open arms at our border um i think uh
00:30:30.220
you know the length it took for us to procure vaccines was really uh uh played a part in why we
00:30:38.620
were shut down for so long um you know did the lockdowns work do we need lockdowns um you know it's
00:30:48.700
a really complicated issue i'm not a medical expert um all i can say is that you know really hurt our business
00:30:54.220
and would you have stayed open if there hadn't been lockdowns if the government had said okay
00:30:59.340
maybe you should maybe you shouldn't that some restaurants were closing sort of voluntarily
00:31:02.860
what would you have done yeah no 100 i would have i would have uh wanted to stay open okay um you know
00:31:09.580
i think you know the safety measures we put in place with uh you know sanitizing uh masks um
00:31:18.460
you know the the plexiglass barriers and divider we put up um you know i i i think that would have
00:31:25.180
kept uh our diners safe um you know especially if you're dining out with members from your old household
00:31:32.140
um you know i don't know what the difference is um you know from going to the store um to buy groceries
00:31:39.100
versus going to a restaurant to sit down and have a meal um you know for for me i i i i would have
00:31:46.940
preferred to have stayed open right now restaurants and and all other locations that are uh relevant
00:31:53.820
to the vaccine passport that have to have the vaccine passport in place they are the ones who
00:31:58.620
are tasked with enforcing this when asking people show your papers as the saying goes i've definitely
00:32:03.980
heard from some places i i was in a i was in a fast food restaurant with my kid i won't name the
00:32:08.460
specific place or location um but the the lady who was tasked with enforcing these duties and this is
00:32:14.140
one of the world's largest restaurant chains uh she did not ask people for passports and i heard
00:32:18.700
her talking to some regulars and she said you know i used to love my job uh you know i'd see everyone's
00:32:22.940
smiles and so forth and now i just it's awful and i have to badger people for this and that nobody likes
00:32:27.900
and so forth and she just wasn't asking for it and so forth i found that really telling i mean there's
00:32:32.380
clearly a lot of frustration from people about about basically uh michael you and your employees tasked
00:32:38.540
with being the cops on this it's i think it's awful um you know i think the the treatment of you know
00:32:47.340
people's rights is is uh really scary um i don't i don't think it's fair that the restaurant industry
00:32:54.460
again is being forced uh to implement this uh and police it um and staff it you know it requires uh
00:33:03.180
another staff member being paid to stand at the door to look at people's vaccine papers um and the
00:33:10.940
government is not supporting that they're not paying for that but they're making the restaurant
00:33:15.740
industry pay for it um you know literally so um you know i i myself am vaccinated um you know i take
00:33:25.580
medical advice from my doctor um and not politicians so um you know it was my choice and my family's
00:33:32.620
choice to to get the vaccine um you know i'm i'm sympathetic to people that maybe don't want it
00:33:38.540
um you know and maybe they have health reasons or medical reasons or religious reasons whatever they
00:33:43.260
are um you know i i think you know we we need to honor those freedoms that that you know people have
00:33:51.180
or should have um so it's it's kind of scary and you know before the vaccine passport you know we were
00:33:58.300
our vaccination rates were in the 80s so you know i think um yeah i think i think it's overkill um
00:34:05.820
i just saw in the news today that uh there's four or five hundred cases in toronto uh of people that
00:34:13.260
have covid uh and 130 of them are back double vaccinated so um you know whether these vaccines are
00:34:22.540
working or not um you know i guess time will tell but it's it was kind of surprising for me to see
00:34:27.980
um that you know out of 500 cases 130 of them are double vaccinated which doesn't make me feel very
00:34:33.340
good but um you know i guess time will tell us to what's going to happen in the future one thing
00:34:38.780
that's frustrated a lot of people is that technically restaurant staff and i won't just put this on
00:34:43.100
restaurants other facilities that have to do the vaccine passport their employees and staff
00:34:49.340
technically do not need to be vaccinated so don't need it you can walk into work and you can
00:34:54.140
be in the environment for a whole eight hour day or ten hour shift or what have you you're not
00:34:58.540
vaccinated yet for somebody to come in and you know have a quick uh app and cocktail or what have you
00:35:03.340
they got to show the papers and i know there's a split opinion i mean my perspective would be well if
00:35:07.100
the employees don't have to do the passport i don't have to do the passport and then the other
00:35:11.020
perspective is there's some people going oh no i can't go into a restaurant because i don't know the
00:35:15.020
status of the employees you know i think that if people are nervous about going out they should stay
00:35:21.740
home and uh you know um that's just uh the way i feel i think it's ridiculous that uh you know there
00:35:30.460
are laws about people needing to be vaccinated to go into a restaurant and then the staff in that
00:35:35.180
restaurant don't need to be vaccinated it's ridiculous uh i'm not saying that i think our staff
00:35:39.660
actually be vaccinated uh by any means but you know what what's really showing is these laws don't
00:35:45.180
make sense and i don't think there is a lot of science behind some of these laws um i think
00:35:50.620
governments are trying to make it look like they're doing something uh without actually having to do
00:35:54.780
anything one of the things i find though is is once you once you actually get into the establishment
00:36:00.300
whatever it is you know you're watching the kids hockey game you're at the movie theater uh you're
00:36:04.300
at the restaurant i find most people are actually pretty chill i know public polling says yes they support
00:36:08.380
this yes they support that and so forth but it's also like people are relaxed and i wonder if the
00:36:13.900
people who are freaking out saying why aren't the restaurant staff vaccinated i mean you know to your
00:36:17.660
point maybe those people should stay home and maybe they're just this sort of extreme vocal
00:36:21.420
minority who who make disproportionate social media posts i mean how have you found it uh reopening
00:36:27.020
the restaurant after the latest uh you know reopening several months ago um has you know has it been
00:36:32.540
a positive atmosphere people just been showing up and you know having drinks and happy to be there
00:36:38.380
yeah it's great and um you know people are very happy to be there and and um you know there's
00:36:44.300
there's a lot of uh there's a lot of kind of jokes and laughter around uh you know people finally
00:36:51.180
getting out of the house and going out for dinner so um you know we found it's been very positive and
00:36:56.620
and a lot of fun uh you know reopening um you know a lot of the uh pandemic kind of problems that we
00:37:04.060
haven't touched about is is uh staff right a lot of our staff all of our staff that we had pre-pandemic
00:37:11.500
left the city uh our general manager and his wife moved home to halifax um uh our dining room manager
00:37:20.940
um couldn't afford to live in toronto anymore and uh and sold their condo and moved to pickering
00:37:27.660
um where you know they sold a little condo and uh exchange for a big house uh our bar manager um
00:37:36.140
same thing went to go work uh in another industry uh because he couldn't survive off of um
00:37:43.180
off of the serve um and you know all of our our uh you know hourly staff that are you know generally a
00:37:50.300
little bit younger more kind of in their 20s um moved home or moved to cities where they could afford rent so
00:37:55.980
um virtually all of our staff uh left the city um and you know upon reopening it's been very difficult
00:38:03.900
to to find staff uh we've had to raise all of our um uh wages uh you know above what they were and
00:38:12.300
above um you know there's a minimum server wage um and we've opted to you know pay our servers more
00:38:19.580
to try and entice people to come and work with us um but it's it's one of our biggest challenges
00:38:24.620
right now is uh labor we haven't talked about inflation but i'm sure uh the actual goods
00:38:29.900
that you're dealing with there the the cooking supply so you mentioned you got to pay the person
00:38:33.580
to to check the passport you've got the supplies uh you've got the labor costs going up and then
00:38:38.140
you've got inflation to deal with it seems like pretty much on on every end you're being squeezed
00:38:43.580
our ingredient costs are spiking um um canola oil has almost tripled in price
00:38:50.940
um so we use that to fill our deep fryers a lot of our cooking is done with canola oil
00:38:56.460
um uh so that has spiked and is a huge cost um i think the main problem is the gas prices have uh you
00:39:05.900
know spiked with the carbon tax so right um you know all of the farmers using fuel to uh you know
00:39:11.660
produce these goods has gone up uh you know they raised their price um the delivery company that's
00:39:18.060
bringing it to us is raising their price for fuel um and then by the time we get it um you know it's
00:39:25.420
inflation so you know prices from all all of our ingredients across the border going up um
00:39:32.860
not just uh you know not just you know canola oil one of the things i lament so much when i see
00:39:39.180
an independent shop a restaurant go out of business as many have done during the pandemic
00:39:43.980
is that this is what makes our communities unique this is what makes them communities
00:39:48.940
when you say oh you're going to manhattan for the first time you're going to toronto for the first
00:39:52.540
time no one says you got to try the mcdonald's at times square you got to try the mcdonald's at king
00:39:57.020
and spadina it's fantastic they say you're going to toronto you got to check out michael huntler's
00:40:01.180
antler kitchen it is just great they give you the list these are the top this is the art gallery you got
00:40:05.100
to go these are the two restaurants and so forth and i i worry about the degree to which the future of
00:40:11.180
our restaurants is also the future of our communities it's the future of our cities where
00:40:16.060
do you see this heading um you know i don't have a crystal ball i would hope that our economy bounces
00:40:22.380
back um i hope that uh you know staff come back and the restaurant industry comes back um you know but
00:40:29.900
i think time time will tell um it's uh it's definitely scary uh to think about but you know i uh have faith
00:40:39.260
and you know we've survived a lot of other restaurants have survived um you know it might
00:40:44.860
be a good opportunity for uh you know rent opportunities to uh you know rent subsidies and
00:40:51.260
or not subsidies but um you know the price of renting uh space in toronto hopefully that will
00:40:56.620
go down and entice more restaurants to come back uh you know we'll see michael i know you're always
00:41:01.180
trying new things you get the cookbook you're working on interesting new recipes uh tell me what's
00:41:06.700
what's in the pipeline what's coming up for you um i am working on a second book um
00:41:15.180
i'm doing a lot of work in the sort of outdoor space um right now that um i focused a lot on
00:41:22.460
during the pandemic because my restaurant was closed uh i had to lay myself off um you know during the
00:41:29.420
reopening and selling takeout for the year um i still was on half my salary so i was um kind of
00:41:35.900
branching out and writing recipes for uh outdoor brands um you know when it when it comes to game
00:41:42.860
and wild fish and things like that so um i've really been you know pushing hard to work um in
00:41:48.860
the outdoor community um so i'm continuing and um you know that work as well um and then uh you know
00:41:57.820
we're going to be continually continually um you know trying to grow antlers so we're we're um you know
00:42:02.860
pre-pandemic we were looking at expanding um i think now uh you know we're trying to figure out
00:42:07.820
again what what we can do to grow awesome stuff michael hunter thanks so much for joining us on
00:42:12.220
the podcast to tell your story i really appreciate it thanks so much for having me it's been a lot of
00:42:16.300
fun full comment is a post media podcast i'm anthony fury this episode was produced by andre pru
00:42:23.020
with theme music by bryce hall kevin libban is the executive producer you can subscribe to full
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