Growing up, Ottawa chef and restaurateur Adam Vettorel was convinced he’d be a lawyer one day. “I’ve got a big mouth and just got it in my head that’s what I wanted to be,” he said during an interview at North & Navy, the acclaimed fine dining restaurant he operates with longtime business partner Christopher Schlesak.
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Growing up, Ottawa chef and restaurateur Adam Vettorel was convinced he’d be a lawyer one day.
“I’ve got a big mouth and just got it in my head that’s what I wanted to be,” he said during an interview at North & Navy, the acclaimed fine dining restaurant he operates with longtime business partner Christopher Schlesak.
NoNa, as it’s called, is located on Nepean Street in Centretown in an older brick house just off the beaten path from Bank Street. It specializes in cuisine from northern Italy, where Vettorel’s paternal family hails from.
It first opened its doors in 2014, at least for those in the know; the restaurant deliberately went without signage in its early days to create the kind of insider vibe that was trendy at the time.
Over the past 10 years, NoNa has frequently landed on Canada’s list of Top 100 restaurants. Vettorel and Schlesak also run Cantina Gia, their small but consistently busy sister restaurant in the Glebe (in the same former Fratelli Restaurant space where the men first met, worked together and became friends).
Vettorel is refreshingly candid about the challenges of his industry. “You learn to cook and that’s your trade, that’s your profession, but owning a restaurant, owning a business, involves so much more.”
To succeed, the cooking has to be “really, really good,” otherwise there’s too much focus lost on trying to improve the food, he continued. “You won’t have time to deal with the million other things you’re going to have to deal with and, if you don’t deal with those things, all hell breaks loose.
“We’re constantly repairing equipment, training new cooks, hiring new cooks,” said Vettorel of the fires they put out, metaphorically at least.
“You need to be so good at cooking, you can do it in your sleep because sometimes that’s how you will be doing it.”
His best advice for future chefs is to start as a dishwasher, much like he did. He worked for Jim Foster at Pelican Seafood Market & Grill. “If you don’t have the stamina to stand in one place and work that hard for that long, then you’re never going to be a chef.”
Vettorel took to the kitchen at a young age, preparing family dinners for his mom and brother with whatever ingredients they could afford. After graduating from Brookfield High School, he paid his way through university by working at restaurants. During his final year at Carleton University, Vettorel worked less in order to meet the demands of his heavy course workload. “I found myself really, really missing cooking.”
Vocational confusion kicked in, causing Vettorel to seek advice from one of his mentors, the late David Clarke. The trademark lawyer was a regular customer at Fratelli. Said Vettorel of this period of his life: “It’s daunting and stressful to have to pick a lane all of a sudden and you feel like there’s no going back once you’ve made your decision.”
Clarke cautioned his young friend to choose his profession wisely, knowing he’d have many years of work ahead of him. “He said, ‘If you really like cooking, then maybe that’s what you should be doing.’”
With that in mind, Vettorel enrolled at Algonquin College for his Red Seal certification. Each morning, he’d get up early and ride public transit to the west-end campus on Woodroffe Avenue. Initially, he questioned whether his career decision was perhaps a step backward.
“The bus is so full; there’s nowhere to sit, and I’m holding all my knives and everything. I’m thinking, ‘What have I done? I could have been drinking a coffee at the University of Ottawa, getting ready for my first tort law lecture. Instead, I’m now surrounded by the huddled masses on my way out to the suburbs to chop onions.’
“Luckily, I had some good chefs to work with,” he said of his college instructors and of the mentors he trained under.
Post-college, Vettorel’s big break came when a spot opened up at respected restaurant Domus Café (Jamie Stunt had left to head up Oz Kafé) and Vettorel was hired. He worked with an “all-star” culinary team that included John Taylor and brothers Simon and Ross Fraser. “It was my first taste of a proper professional kitchen, where everyone’s a strong cook and there are no weak links and everyone’s pushing each other really hard and holding each other to really high standards.”
Vettorel remained at Domus for the better part of five years, working his way up to chef de cuisine. On the backburner was his dream of one day opening his own restaurant. It’s something he and Schlesak had discussed during their days at Fratelli, where the late Roberto Valente served as both their boss and mentor. They tested out their entrepreneurship skills together by operating a side-hustle catering business for a period of time.
Vettorel also credits working at Whalesbone and Supply & Demand as key to helping him build his expertise.
Vettorel is particularly proud of how NoNa pulled through the pandemic, with 2022 being its best year yet. “We were firing on all cylinders,” he said of their efforts to be ready for customers when business resumed post-pandemic. ”We worked really hard to pivot, which is a word I can happily live the rest of my life without hearing again.”
Employee retention became key, he continued, when they operated under restrictions. They paid senior staff to come in and dust, just to keep them part of the team.
“Once you get to a certain level, the difference all comes down to staff,” he explained. “If you have two equally good restaurants, the one that ekes out the other one has better cooks, better servers and better bartenders. Once we get good people, we really want to keep them.”
Vettorel is also pleased with the partnership NoNa has with the Parkdale Food Centre, a non-profit organization that strives to meet the needs of its community. “They do a really incredible job of delivering help with a lot of dignity and care.”
Much of Vettorel’s life revolves around work and family. At age 44, he’s married with an eight-year-old daughter. As an example of how committed he is to his craft, he spent two days during his one-week summer holiday working as a guest chef at the renowned Pearl Morissette restaurant in the Niagara region.
Listening to Vettorel speak about his career, it’s easy to draw comparisons between his life and the hit streaming show The Bear. “I can’t watch it, it gives me so much anxiety,” he acknowledged, while relating to some of the show’s frenzied plotlines.
Having a business partner like Schlesak, who excels at managing people and stressful situations, keeps operations running smoothly, he added. “He brings a lot of skills to the table that I don’t have.”
