‘Cooking is a beautiful thing’: A chef's journey from Hope to Estonia

For five years, Hiro Takeda lit up Hope’s modest culinary scene, creating an ambitious and experimental restaurant at the heart of the community. And then he was gone.

In 2015, Chilliwack Times reporter Greg Laychak spoke to Takeda about his ambitions and philosophy of food. Nine years later, the Times is defunct and Takeda is a chef in Estonia, but the pair recently reconnected for a new visual podcast series—and to collaborate on a photography project involving fermented film.

In 2013, after working as a chef in Langley, Takeda came to Hope and bought Joe’s Restaurant, transforming it into 293 Wallace Street, a restaurant built around its chef’s thirst for experimentalism and creativity.

Serving dishes like cheesecake with ants, 293 Wallace was a restaurant that aimed for the stars. But ambition giveth and taketh, especially in a place like Hope; and five years after it opened, 293 closed as Takeda aspired for more flavours and a new culinary life.

Today, after a restless period spent making maple syrup, learning about distilling, and farming ducks, Takeda is leading a new restaurant in Estonia’s capital city. At Lee Restoran, the lessons Takeda learned in Hope are bearing fruit, not only on plates, but at the spiritual heart of the restaurant itself.

“I cannot begin to describe how fortunate I am to be part of this project, to be able to explore myself internally, to be able to explore myself in such an intimate way through food in a restaurant that I had no idea existed four years ago,” Takeda told Laychak.

“At the same time it’s also challenged me to also think about the things that are really important to me: what are my values? What are my beliefs? Especially when it comes to food, there was a transition that happened, especially at 293, but [that] was also stabilized here: this idea that food is just a medium for building relationships and nurturing relationships.”

Takeda continued:

“I wouldn’t be in Tallinn, Estonia, if it wasn’t for food. I wouldn’t have had all these experiences that I had if it wasn’t for food. I wouldn’t have the friend group that I have if it wasn’t for food. And I wouldn’t have this sense of purpose, of trying to share more of myself with people if it wasn’t for food. I think in that way, cooking is a beautiful thing because the people who eat my food, even if they don’t meet me, get at least a small sense of who I am.”

Below, you can watch the full conversation, and see Laychak—now a freelance photographer—and Takeda discuss and share the results of a collaborative photography project that involved fermented film.

You can find Laychak’s entire video podcast series, which premiered last month on Telus Optik TV channel 9, here.