Head Chefs Unite for 2022 Season

What are you most excited about in your new role this season?

Mark: Working with my team, some are returning, some are new to the property. Olivia and I have been able to gather some great people who have so much to bring to the table in different ways, I’m excited to see what that’s going to look like.

Olivia: My guru once reminded me, ‘to have a learning attitude means that everyone is your teacher’. Mark and I consider ourselves super lucky to be in the company of such talented, inquisitive, passionate, dedicated and kind people across all departments. I am most privileged and excited to learn from them and my surroundings. I have a strong feeling with this team that this 2022 season at Clayoquot is going to be the best one yet. I’m also excited to see my very first orca this summer! Yay! It’s gonna happen… I can feel it.

What do you like to do when you’re not working?

Mark: Now I’m in the mode of discovery and reacquainting myself with things that engage me. Picking up some old colouring books, I just coloured a picture of Danny Devito as Pikachu. I’m quite into Untitled Goose Game on my Switch and I have a stack of books I am slowly working my way through. Just recently I’ve taken on the task of prepping the garden at Clayoquot for the season. Interwoven through that is just taking care of myself mentally and physically, do I succeed on a daily basis? No, but do I try to be more aware of it… sometimes.

Olivia: These days, nothing too exciting I’m afraid. Ha! Just doing activities one might consider tranquil and calming, or boring! I like to take long walks along MacAulay Point Park which is one block from our place in Victoria, BC. I’ve been reading bios of people I find cool and interesting. Currently, I’m reading Roy Choi’s Memoir along with ‘Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’. I’ve also been embracing my 15-year-old self again and playing a lot of video games! Hadouken!

You met at Clayoquot. Can you tell us more about your romance?

Mark: We’ve always found it wild that Olivia and I both worked and travelled within the same circles in Toronto, yet we met in BC at a wilderness lodge in the middle of nowhere! Our Toronto connection was what broke the ice and we became fast friends. This was at the beginning of the season in May, Olivia and I would not start dating till June. Our first kiss was on the way back from a late-night fire, walking through a field amongst the horses, like come on!

From there we did half-heartedly try to keep our relationship to ourselves but word gets out quickly in camp. We have gone on to work together in other kitchens since then, we’ve had our growing pains, we are chefs who have run our own restaurants after all, egos and decisions clash but it’s only made our relationship stronger.