Chef Nicole Gomes on her climb to culinary success

Since moving to Calgary and landing a job at one of the city's top new restaurants at the age of 24, chef Nicole Gomes has helped bridge the gap between fine dining and catering. 

Already seven years into her culinary career, she decided to bring the restaurant experience into peoples' homes.

Classically trained at Vancouver's Dubrulle Culinary School, Nicole apprenticed in Paris before travelling through Europe, Asia and Australia. She gathered culinary experience before returning to Canada and becoming the first female chef hired by David Hawksworth at West in Vancouver (he's now chef-owner of the award-winning Hawksworth in the Hotel Georgia).

She came to Calgary for love and wound up trying out for a position at Catch with chef Michael Noble at the helm.

"I really think it's important that we choose where we work, and make sure that it's a good fit," she said. "I actually tried out first. I told chef Noble, 'I'll work three days and see if I fit with the team.' I've always done that with my career — chosen my jobs. I don't want to go into a position and not last. I want to make sure it's the right learning experience for me, and that it's a place I can grow."

"I was offered a job at Lumiere in Vancouver, but I didn't mesh. You don't want to be miserable — there's already so much pressure in this industry."

Working her way up

Nicole worked her way up to the position of sous chef, cooking alongside the likes of Duncan Ly, Nick Nutting (now at Wolf in the Fog in Tofino), Justin Labossier, Wanda Lee, Eric Giesbrecht and Robert Jewell.

She also worked with Hayato Okamitsu, Jason Boyd and Andrew Hewson, who are now culinary instructors at SAIT.

"It's one of the best teams I've ever worked with," Nicole told me. "It was a new concept in Calgary, so we had to work really hard. It wasn't easy, but it was the most fun. We were united — like a family. We were also a bit competitive, which is important. It drives you to be better. Sometimes that's lacking in the new generation of cooking."

She isn't referring to the type of reality TV-style competition she endured in Season 3 of Top Chef Canada, but the kind that keeps a culinary community evolving.

"It's healthy competition — not malicious or egotistical. It was literally, 'I'm going to do that better because I want to be better.' That's missing now from our culture and our industry. Things have changed. It's become more about celebrity chefs, and I don't think that's what drives you to do better."

Nicole left Catch to help conceptualize Mercato when they made their move from Bridgeland to Mission.

"I loved working at Mercato," she reminisced about her role as executive chef. "I loved the food, and cooking in front of people, but it was a lot of work. I went on to say to myself, 'I can't work these long hours for someone else.' I knew I wanted to own my own business by the time I was 30. So I took a business course, and just did it."

Catering calling 

Nicole's career took a new trajectory as she started cooking for clients in their homes and at events, customizing menus and working out the often complicated logistics of transport, on-site prep and service.

"Catering kind of happened haphazardly," she said. "I thought I'd open a restaurant, and then clients from Mercato started calling and asking if I'd come cook at their house, and I'd be like, sure! And then it became a thing, and it kind of evolved from there. I was renting a kitchen in Ramsay and I said to the owners, 'If you're ever thinking of selling, I want to buy this.' And funnily enough, they were."

She's been in that space for 10 years now, and through her extraordinary talent, hard work, unwavering attention to detail and involvement in culinary events — pulling off unique experiences like the Periodic Table Dinner on a Ferris Wheel during Beakerhead — Nicole has become one of the best-known chefs and caterers in the city.

"With catering, it's 75 per cent logistics," she said of making the move out of a restaurant kitchen into spaces ranging from unfamiliar home kitchens to parks, galleries and other venues.

"It's much more detail-oriented. You have to be prepared, because you never know where you're going to be cooking. You have to be a problem solver, and think on your feet without stressing out. You're with your client, in their home. In a restaurant kitchen you're in the back, you can swear if you want."

Then again, customizing events requires more one-on-one with those for who she is cooking for.

"There's a huge amount of gratification in catering," Nicole said. "It's very personal — you're in their home, sharing their life events. You develop a direct relationship with them, and see the results first hand."

Chicken take-out coming

This fall and winter, Nicole and her sister Francine are working on a new concept: a chicken joint called Cluck n' Cleaver serving take-out southern fried and rotisserie chicken at 1411 14th St. S.W. next to Boyd's.

"It's a business I've been thinking about for a long time that comes from our undying love for chicken," Nicole said.

Francine was a chicken farmer in the Kootenays with a vast knowledge of animal husbandry, foraging and living off the land.

"I would never partner with anyone else," Nicole said.

The two have been excitedly planning, branding and sourcing local ingredients, and even pondering starting their own chicken farm. They expect to be open by the end of 2015.

It's a perfect pairing, Nicole says, with Francine shouldering much of the work she's better suited to.

"Over the years I've become a better business owner," said Nicole. "I learned how to streamline things, how to outsource and put my energies into what I'm best at — and that's being in the kitchen."