Boy Wonder
by Ivy Knight

                                                                                 Photos: Ashley Colter and Leslie Vineberg

The first time I met Christoph Stadtländer he offered me some of his smoked salmon on an Ace Bakery baguette with wasabi crème fraiche. It was so good I have to admit I thought his dad had made it. The blue-eyed blonde in front of me didn’t look like a chef, he looked more like he should be on the cover of Teen Beat.

Christoph, the middle son of one of Canada’s greatest chefs, Michael Stadtländer, is descended from culinary royalty. He’s got organic, artisanal, sustainable blood running through his veins and more interest in Mother Nature than baby mamas.

In a house at Oakwood and St. Clair on January 2nd, 1984 Christoph was born to Michael and Corolla Stadtländer. This is where he lived with big brother Jonas until age five, at which point his parents separated and Christoph moved to Australia with his mother. Growing up, he hopped between Australia and Ontario with most summers spent in Germany. “I was always missing my father when I was in Australia and when I was here I was missing my mother. They spent a lot of money on plane tickets.”

By 1993, Christoph had a new stepmother, Nobuyo, a new little brother, Hermann, and the family had started up the now world famous Eigensinn Farm. “At the farm there’s always something going on. At eleven I was bussing tables and Jonas was always in the kitchen. He cooked at Gordon Ramsay in Tokyo and is now opening a restaurant in Singhampton with his wife Kaori . We met a lot of different people coming through there to cook or to work for food. I lived with over fifty different apprentices over the years and made some really great friends. Growing up there were two apprentices that were like big brothers to me, Mark LaPointe and Michael Dixon. I’m still friends with them today.”

At 15, Christoph wanted to make his own money so he started smoking salmon in the hopes that he could sell it in the big city. “When I told Dad I was going to do this he could have said ‘Let me talk to my friends, connections. I’ll hook you up’ but he didn’t. They always told us we had to make our own money. He gave me his recipe for the brine and showed me how to do it and I did it all myself.”

In the early 90s LaPointe built a smokehouse on at Eigensinn with Christoph, Jonas and their dad. Made of field stone, it’s large enough to smoke two whole pigs and it was built entirely by hand.

“On Mondays I would go to Ontario fisheries in Collingwood, pick up the salmon, filet it myself, brine it and smoke it in the smokehouse. The salmon needs to cure for 24 hours and smoke for fourteen. Then on Fridays Dad would take me to the bus station after school and I’d go into the city to try to sell my salmon. There I was, this teenager with a styrofoam box of smoked fish hopping on the TTC to deliver to restaurants around the city.”

He sold to Paul Boehmer at Opus, Yasser Qahawish at The Law Society, Chris Klugman at the Delta Chelsea, Innocenti and Gypsy Co-op. He also met customers at the farm. “I’d meet them through serving and deliver the salmon to their house.”

Jamie Kennedy remembers being approached by young Christoph. “I remember thinking it was quite entrepreneurial of him. I tasted it and it was a good product.”

At sixteen Christoph was  working in the kitchen at Innocenti with Paul Rickards. “There were just the two of us in the kitchen. He taught me a lot about responsibility.” By the time he was seventeen he’d lost interest in the salmon and headed back to Australia where he found work as a server at the National Wine Centre of Australia and started saving his money so he could go to Germany for a year to do an organic agricultural apprenticeship.

While in Germany he stayed with his aunt (His mother’s sister) and uncle, a Baron and Baroness who live in a castle called Schloss Hohenroden. It sounds great, but the castle does not offer a luxe life. Instead there's a 600 hectare organic farm where the family raises cows and pigs, operates a store where they sell their smoked meat and sausages, and run a festival hall where they do banquets and weddings. They also have their own slaughterhouse. Says Christoph, “I worked my ass off, thirteen hours a day, six days a week. It was a really good experience, it toughened me up and gave me a good work ethic. That’s where I really started to appreciate the way food used to be produced.”

He returned to Canada and worked at Chateau Lake Louise, serving at night and skiing all day, then he came back to Ontario and decided it was time to get back into the smoked salmon business. He started a company and christened it Christoph Fine Foods. His slogan is 'The way food used to be'.

“I feel a lot better when I eat organic, fresh food. That’s my upbringing – plan more, think twice, think about the impact you’re making. Try to keep all that in mind while still making a living. When I first started out I was using Atlantic farmed salmon, but then I found out how bad that was for the environment.”

The salmon Christoph uses now is organically raised Chinook salmon. There are no antibiotics or hormones used and the fish feed on fishmeal that contains certified organic wheat and herring by-product, which have a high level of Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids. The salmon are raised in a high stream, low density and low stress environment near Tofino, BC on a farm that belongs to the Pacific Organic Seafood Association (POSA).

The fish is shipped fresh to Georgian Bay, where the smoking is done, Christoph having grown out of the field stone smokehouse at Eigensinn Farm. Over five days, the fish gets individually cured using organic sea salt and organic sugar, and is then cold smoked using maple, in a traditional smokehouse. It really is perfect smoked salmon, the best I’ve ever tasted and if you don’t care what I think then maybe you’ll listen to James Chatto. “I only met Christoph once when he was helping at an event up at the farm and was too busy to talk. I really don't know him at all - or what he's up to except for that salmon he sells that I think is delicious, sweet, juicy, delicately smoky, supple…”

In Toronto, you can purchase this smoked salmon at All The Best Fine Foods, Pusateri’s, Summerhill Market, Cumbrae's and The Healthy Butcher. Christoph's salmon is also available at Einhorn Fine Foods in Caledon East and Dags & Willow in Collingwood. Restaurant patrons can also sample it at Toronto's Rosewater Supper Club (where Chef Paul Boehmer currently cooks) and Tesoro in Collingwood.

Christoph also works with Creemore Brewery, where he is the Events and Promotions rep. “When I was 13 I would steal Dad’s Creemore from the fridge. It’s my dad’s favourite beer, the only kind he buys - when he doesn’t get it free from me. If I’m not doing events I go out and do line-cleaning. My mother always said ‘just do what you love and you’ll be happy.’ Well, I love beer and I love Creemore. It’s the best job I’ve ever had. I’m surrounded by great people making great beer with a lot of love and pride.”

Kevin Brauch, who knows a thing or two about beer and doing what you love, recalls the first time he saw Christoph at the Creemore Picnic. “He was wearing a baby blue shirt with the collar turned up and I thought he was just another kid who worked at the brewery. Then I found out who his father was and thought ‘Well, well, well doesn’t this kid have it good? His dad’s one of the best chefs in the world and he’s working for one of the best breweries in the country.’ Then I got to know him and realized he wasn’t just riding some wave created by his dad. He’s got standards and integrity, but I wish he’d turn his collar down.”

When he’s not smoking salmon, selling salmon, turning up his collar to give out free beers or cleaning keg lines this heir to the Stadtländer throne is looking forward to spring when he can start picking wild leeks and fiddleheads to sell to Toronto chefs. He’s not even 25, it will be interesting to see what this overachieving workaholic will have accomplished by the time he hits 30. If you want to check our boy out in the flesh, he’ll be pouring at the Hamilton Food & Wine Show (Mar.28-30th) and the Toronto Cheese & Wine Show (Apr. 4-6). But ladies – hands off, he’s got a girlfiend.

Read more of Ivy Knight at gremolata.com/ivyknight.htm
or contact her directly at ladyslenderlegs@gmail.com

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