Ray Bear pulls the plug again

[mr x]

Chef fed up with bear market in Halifax, opts to pull up roots

Ray Bear has sold his share in his latest Halifax restaurant and plans to leave the province to focus on crafting fine food.

The homegrown culinary talent — until recently the chef at Mix: Fresh Kitchen — says he let business partner Chris Richards buy him out because high-end food is neither profitable nor palatable right now in Halifax.

Mix’s menu hits closer to chic comfort food than true fine dining, but it is the latter that sparks Bear’s ardour. And few upscale restaurants in the central business district are really thriving, Bear said, given the slump in the economy and the outflow of commercial traffic from the downtown core to suburban industrial parks.

"Downtown Halifax has a ton of potential and I think it’ll get there, but it’s just not there right yet," he said Tuesday. "There’s little appetite for very refined food and that’s where I’m at right now, that’s what I would like to do. I can cook comfort food with the best of them, but that’s not where my passion is."

Bear built up his reputation at the Prince George Hotel’s trendy Gio in 2006 before later moving to Bear, the restaurant that bore his name and later went under due to debt and lawsuits. Court documents showed that contractors named Bear, his financial backer, David Tabah, and others connected to the restaurant in the lawsuit, alleging they were owed more than $600,000 for work done renovating the building.

After the restaurant’s closure, the chef travelled for about a year, but Halifax drew him back. He had long wanted to transform the city’s culinary scene.

"A big goal of mine has been to influence what chefs do in this industry around here," he said last October, about a month after opening Mix.

"I would love, 20 years from now, to know that the majority of great restaurants in the Maritimes, even Canada, have chefs that have been influenced by my cooking. And I plan on doing that from Halifax."

A move could certainly benefit Bear, the Coast’s former food critic said, because while Halifax’s downtown restaurant scene has taken a downturn alongside the economy, the chef himself may have fallen victim to tall poppy syndrome.

"For some reason Nova Scotians seem to resent . . . homegrown people who are successful," Liz Feltham said. "We’re supposed to be very humble. . . . He’s very polarizing, so I think it would be very good for him to have a fresh start because he’s certainly got the talent to back up the talk."

While tourists are a boon to downtown eateries, Feltham said that they also need a strong local client base in order to turn a profit year-round. And that is a market that is hard to capture.

"Although Halifax calls itself a big city, there’s definitely a lot of small-town mindsets where people are still coming out (and) wondering why they should spend $20 for a chicken breast when they can buy a pack of them and have them at home," she said.

Bear has yet to decide which city — or country — will become his new kitchen. Wherever he goes, he plans to focus less on business and more on crafting fine food.

His departure, however, is unlikely to be permanent.

"Right now, the market’s kind of slow (in Halifax), so it’s a good time to get out and do some different things," he said. "I’ll keep my eye on what’s going on here (and) look forward to coming back in the future."

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