Chef Carmen Ingham The Pointe Restaurant
Canada’s Great Kitchen Party is the lead up to the Canadian Culinary Championships, and is underway in cities across Canada. Vancouver’s competition takes place Friday, October 4, 2019 at Rogers Arena. We’ve asked the chefs a few questions to get to know them a bit better and here’s the results from Chef Carmen Ingham from The Pointe Restaurant at Tofino’s Wickaninnish Inn.
Tell us a little bit about your restaurant and/or style of cooking.
The Pointe Restaurant overlooks Chesterman beach and the wide open pacific ocean in Tofino. Our goal in the kitchen is to share the beauty of the farms, ocean, and forests of the west coast with our guests.
Where do you eat in your city?
I go to Summit bakery more often than anywhere else. Also Shed for burgers.
What did you eat for dinner last night?
A chicken souvlaki wrap that my wife made, very good!
What city would you most like to eat in right now, and why?
I travelled to Peru before I was very interested in cooking, so I would love to go back to Lima for its diversity of ingredients.
What ingredient do you most like to cook with and why?
My favourites constantly change with the seasons, right now it would be cynamoka berries for their acidity.
What is your most used piece of kitchen equipment besides your knives?
Is a spoon equipment? GLV – YES!
What’s do you often cook at home?
roast chicken
What cookbook/s do you most often refer to?
Relae
What chef would you like to collaborate with?
Joshua Skenes
What are you preparing for The Great Canadian Kitchen Party (hints are fine)?
The best ingredients on the coast.. seafood, mushrooms, and berries
What is your beverage pairing?
TH wines Cabernet franc 2017
Who is coming with you to assist?
Our restaurant manager, food and beverage director, sommelier, pastry sous chef, and a few friends that I’ve cooked with in the past.
Bio Carmen Ingham
Chef Carmen Ingham is passionate about showing off the ingredients that represent coastal British Columbia. Hailing from North Vancouver, with summers spent camping and fishing at Pachena Bay on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Chef Ingham’s focus on locally-inspired cuisine is a perfect match with what we strive for at the Wickaninnish Inn: celebrating the bounty and beauty of where we live.
A graduate of Vancouver Community College’s (VCC) culinary program, and with fourteen years professional experience, Chef Ingham comes to us from his most recent position as Head Chef at the award-winning Olo Restaurant in Victoria, B.C. From casual to fine dining, butchery to pastry, Chef Ingham brings a broad array of professional expertise to his position as Executive Chef at The Pointe Restaurant. His resume includes: Chef De Cuisine at Villa Eyrie Resort (Malahat, B.C.), Head Chef at Meat & Bread (Victoria, B.C.), Head Chef at Clarke & Co., (Victoria, B.C.) Chef De Partie at Pourhouse Restaurant (Vancouver, B.C.), and Sous Chef at Relais & Châteaux property Sonora Resort (Sonora Island, B.C.).
Chef Ingham’s talent was recognized early in his career. He placed second in the first annual Hawksworth Young Chef Scholarship, a Canada-wide cooking competition for chefs under 28 years old, in 2013, and was recognized as the “Le Creuset Rising Star” at the same event. In 2016, he was one of the top ten young chefs in Canada at San Pellegrino Young Chef competition.
Constantly seeking to expand his skills, Chef Ingham has travelled across B.C., to Washington, California, Japan and Italy to volunteer at farms and assist staging in a diverse range of culinary environments. This hands-on and from-the-ground work with ingredients was “an enlightening experience,” he says, and highly influential in his approach to respecting the produce he uses.
Chef Ingham is known for making “creative food that ‘makes sense,’” but his talent sails further than the plate. Providing a unique and cohesive dining experience for others gives him “a huge sense of purpose and fulfillment”; this requires hard work and mutual respect within a team, attention to detail and consistency, he says.
With an approach that so candidly aligns with ours at the Inn, it feels like a natural fit to have Chef Ingham join our leadership team at The Pointe Restaurant. Fostering an authentic connection to the land and people of this area is something we pride ourselves on.
“I am very passionate about this beautiful corner of the world,” he says, “and have always thought of the Inn as the property that best represents it. I couldn’t ask for a more inspiring place to cook.”
We look forward to continuing our legacy of creating exceptional dining experiences for you here in Tofino with Chef Ingham’s fresh perspective.
