Matty Matheson is probably the busiest multi-hyphenate in the food industry.
The 41-year-old chef is a renowned restaurateur, cookware and clothing entrepreneur, and New York Times bestselling cookbook author. The supremely tatted dad of three is also a ubiquitous, joyful presence across social media, between content shared with his 1.4 million Instagram followers and 1.3 million YouTube subscribers and what feels like daily hits on other food influencers’ pages.
Matheson is also a key figure in the Toronto area’s bustling food scene. He is currently the owner or co-owner of Mexican street food spot Fonda Balam, Vietnamese pho and bánh mì shop Cà Phê Rang, upscale steakhouse Prime Seafood Palace, red-sauce joint Rizzo’s House of Parm, and the self-explanatory Matty’s Patty’s Burger Club.
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Matty Matheson as Neil Fak alongside Jeremy Allen White as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto in FX’s “The Bear.”
Chuck Hodes/FXOh, he’s also a sustainable farm owner, philanthropist, and, yes, of course, an actor known for his role as handyman Neil Fak in FX’s The Bear (notably also the only IRL chef in the cast who never so much as touches a spoon on the show).
Now add to that impressive résumé: Head of Canada tourism. Well, sort of.
Matheson has signed up for that cheeky title as the spokesperson for a partnership between Expedia and Destination Canada, promoting Canada as a destination for Americans and inviting them to book travel packages to the Great White North and put their name on special items or locations across the country. On a first-come first-served basis, beginning Thursday, the campaign says, travelers can give a name to items or animals in Canada—from a beer at Container Brewing in Vancouver to a polar bear in the northernmost reaches of Manitoba.
Matheson chatted with The Daily Beast over Zoom about this new “gig” and shared his favorite places to eat and explore in Canada, as well as what to expect from a Season Three of The Bear. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Toronto is a huge food town—some might argue the best food scene in North America. You’ve got more than a few restaurants of your own in the area, but what are some of your favorite things to eat or do in Toronto?
The places I love to go to, like, truly frequent? I go to King’s Noodle in Chinatown. I go to Yummy Yummy Dumplings in Chinatown. I go to Lao Thai, which is right by our offices. I go to Shoushin, which is an amazing kind of high-end omakase spot that’s up in North Toronto on Yonge Street. There’s so much. Bernhardt’s is a fire restaurant, it’s amazing, just off Queen West. We’re going there with our staff for our Christmas dinner. They’re one of my favorite restaurants. Edulis is a beautiful restaurant. You can go there and have, like, a four-hour lunch on Sundays and it’s just a very kind of bohemian Spanish bistro. Tobey [Nemeth] and Michael [Caballo], the couple who own it, are incredible.
There are just so many restaurants in Toronto, it’s nuts. It really is. The food is so, so eclectic. You can come here and you can have great Sri Lankan and Caribbean and amazing Chinese food, amazing Jamaican. I’m really proud of the food in Toronto and as I travel around the world, it really makes me proud how eclectic and strong the culinary scene is back home in Toronto.
Montreal is often thought of as Canada’s big restaurant city, but it’s a very different place. Every time I go to Toronto I’m amazed by how much of a melting pot it is.
Yeah, I think Montreal has really phenomenal restaurants. Toronto has a culinary identity of, you know, the world. And I think Montreal does as well, but I think Québécois is its own thing. They have Québécois food, they have the Québécois culture, and they have Québécois life. So it’s, like, you go there and you want to slam poutine and get some steamies [Québec-style hot dogs], and you want to kind of live that way. You want to go to the sugar shacks. You want to do things that represent the province and those people. So I think it is an amazing thing where that lifestyle really is fortified in Montreal. Whereas I think the core foundation of Toronto is a global melting pot.
When Americans think of visiting Canada, I think we’d typically look at Toronto, Montreal, PEI, Vancouver, maybe Banff, other big destinations. But what are some off-the-radar places in Canada you’d recommend people check out?
Well, I’d say Ridgeway, where I’m living now, is an amazing place. You know, it’s like, I don’t know, maybe 9-to-12,000 people, I think, I’m not even sure, but it’s such a nice little town and Crystal Beach, which is a minute away, is right on Lake Erie and it’s just such a beautiful place to visit. It’s an up-and-coming beach town and it’s had so many different lives over the last couple of decades. It’s on the rise and it’s beautiful.
But go to the Maritimes. Go to Shediac [aka the “Lobster Capital of the World”] in New Brunswick. Go to Cape Breton [in Nova Scotia]. It’s amazing and beautiful. Going to Cape Breton Island as a whole is just incredible. My heart’s in the East Coast, you know, I was born in New Brunswick, and so it’s just, like, my whole family lives there. And so I love the Maritimes as a whole.
Prince Edward Island is the highly tourist spot, but I think going to smaller towns, going to the south shore of Nova Scotia is amazing. Yarmouth is crazy. East Coast is where I’ve traveled to the most, like, every summer I try to go out there with my kids and allow them to see where I grew up and where I come from. And I’m proud of that.
And then on the other side [of Canada], I go to Vancouver Island or Salt Spring Island. Going to one of the smaller islands around Vancouver Island is a real trip. You go there and it’s like Middle Earth, it’s so untapped and so beautiful. And you’re just there and you’re like, oh, there’s rainforests and there’s epic mountains and waterfalls. I don’t know, Salt Spring Island is a really special place.
Even going to northern Saskatchewan. It’s so wooded and so beautiful and it’s so vast. It’s like one of those things where, for Americans, I don’t feel like they understand Canada’s so much larger than America. But then it’s, like, only the population of California. So there’s just so much space and so much beauty. You go to Canmore, Alberta, which is like entering the Rocky Mountains and it’s just so epic as you drive up into this small little mountain town. And then it’s just there at the foothills.
Canada’s so big and then the population’s so small that you can drive for a day and not even see anybody. Even in Ontario, we can drive from where we are [in Toronto] for, like, 18 to 20 hours, and still be in Ontario. To drive all the way up to Manitoba takes like 24 hours straight and it’s just a really interesting place to go and an amazing place to travel. Canada is beautiful, it’s so welcoming.
What’s one Canadian province that Americans don’t really visit that you think is worth a trip?
Manitoba. Go to Manitoba. Shoutout to Manitoba. Just get to Manitoba, get to Winnipeg in the summer. Last time I was there I had a great time. They got some really iconic restaurants, they got a good vibe, it’s low-key, they’ve got good spots to go swim. Find a lake, go jump in it.
So back to food. There are a lot of specialties that Canada’s big destinations are known for. You’ve got your Montreal poutine, your PEI oysters, etc., but is there any local specialty that you think deserves more attention?
Well, on the East Coast, it’s known for oysters, but I’m actually always looking for fried clams there. You can go to this town, St. Stephen, it’s known for having some of the best fried clams out in New Brunswick. There’s all these little things. Even, like, you go to the Maritimes, and it’s all about just getting a hot turkey sandwich. You know, it’s like you’re doing some small-town stuff and in the summertime you can still just get a hot turkey sandwich—at any time. That’s really cool. I think the fried shellfish and fried seafood are really special out there too. And the way they do it is so different from how they do it in Maine. It’s its own thing.
Or if you go to Winnipeg, you want that Mennonite summer sausage. There’s a lot of Mennonites out there and every time my friends that live in Toronto, but are from Manitoba—every time they go home they always come back with this summer sausage, and it’s so good. Or you’re in the Canadian Prairies and just finding these old steakhouses, the old original things that have been there forever.
Whenever I go anywhere, I always try to find a high and low. I want to go and eat expensive oysters on the side of the ocean but also eat fried clams from a tiny shack, you know? I like those juxtapositions of high and low and I think Canada has a lot to offer in that way. I always try to find the oldest steakhouse or the oldest diner, where the food has stood the test of time in the same way that makes those parts of the country so great. It’s all about diving a little deeper and not just going to hotspots, but also trying to find those mom-and-pop shops and family-owned businesses and those smaller things, which I think are a little more special.
Yeah, and those classic institutions definitely feel like they’re fading away. It feels like a lot of restaurants even in New York are now focused on being Instagrammable and catering to social media trends. Meanwhile, all the old Greek diners on Long Island where I grew up—you just can’t find those anymore.
That’s the thing, like, the more people travel, the more people should be supporting the local institutions. Definitely go, go, go to those hotspots, have those experiences if you want to stand in line and get TikTok food or whatever may be. Eat it up! But I think it’s a respect thing, when you’re traveling, to act like a local. Act like a local and respect the history of where you’re going and have fun. Go to those iconic spots because they stand the test of time and they’ve put in the work.
A great example being Wilensky’s Light Lunch in Montreal.
Exactly. It took local people to bring Bourdain there. And then, you know, it turned into what it turned into. But even still, you can go there literally any time and just pull up. They’re still there, doing what they do, making bologna sandwiches with mustard and a cherry cola.
Anything particularly overrated in Canada? Something or somewhere you’d say to avoid?
You know, I try not to get too negative. I think everything is warranted and I think everyone’s out there trying to do their thing. Life is tough now. If you’re out there doing what you’re trying to do everyday, we got to respect that.
Definitely. Though I guess if someone is coming to New York for the first time and they ask me what they should see, I’d probably tell them, “You can skip Times Square.” Does Canada have anything like that? Maybe the city of Niagara Falls can be a little tourist trap-y, but even then it’s real nature...
Speaking of that, there’s this one little sushi spot [in Niagara] that has these robots bringing you the food. And so me and my son, we just ripped down to the falls, he loves seeing it, and so we just ripped over there and parked on the side of the road and took a look at the falls. It’s crazy, it’s one of the wonders of the world and you can just go see it.
I don’t know, though, like, Times Square, it’s all what you make of it. If you want to go into the tourist traps and you want to do that with the right mindset and not begrudgingly, it can be one of the best times of your life. It’s like one of those things where if you’re going into it a cynic, you’re not going to have a good time. When you welcome things with open arms and open-mindedness, then I’m sure you’re going to have a way better experience. A couple ripples of love gets a lot further than a big splash of negativity.
It’s funny because we all say how awful Times Square is, but from childhood up until even now one of my favorite things to do is ride the elevator at the Marriott Marquis. It faces out over the lobby and you can look out over the 50 floors of the hotel, it goes so fast. And you think, this is so cool, I want my kid to ride it one day.
Yeah or your kid loves Spiderman and you’re like, why are there 47 Spidermen here? [Laughs]
I feel obligated to ask: You haven’t even started filming yet, but is there anything we can expect or you’re hoping for from a Season Three of The Bear?
Yeah, there’s gonna be time travel. I think we’re going to do dinosaurs. And I think some lasers and just, like, you know, I think a couple capes. I think things are gonna get really crazy in season three.
So with Expedia, you’re now the “head of tourism” for Canada for this campaign. Tell me what that’s all about.
Expedia and Destination Canada are trying to get people to come to Canada and trying to show our beautiful country. I’m like, well, I’m Canadian and I love Canada. I still live here. So we’re trying to get people out here. The coolest thing, I think, is they’re making this initiative about naming stuff—so they worked with all these different companies and conservation areas and all these areas across Canada, and visitors can actually, for example, name a moose on the Yukon Wildlife Preserve. You can name a seat on the Rocky Mountaineer train that crosses the Canadian Rockies. You can name a storm-watching hot tub—there’s a hot tub at a resort on Vancouver Island that’s great for watching storms, and you can name that.
There’s a pond hockey team at the Elk Ridge Resort in Saskatchewan, or you can name an actual potato field at FarmBoys Inc. in PEI, where my grandfather’s from, Prince Edward Island. There’s an ice-fishing shack on Lake Winnipeg in Gimli, Manitoba. You can name that. But this initiative is about both bringing people to Canada and allowing them to leave their mark in a positive, beautiful way.
Literally, for $20.23, you can name a pond hockey team.
