YAM magazine’s Best Restaurant Awards 2024 celebrate Greater Victoria, B.C.’s exciting food scene, judged by an independent panel of chefs and food experts. 

BY CINDA CHAVICH | PHOTOS BY JEFFREY BOSDET

Chef Clark Deutscher of Hanks, Nowhere and Ate *A Restaurant keeps his focus on ethical ingredients and the local farmers who produce them.
Clark Deutscher keeps his focus on ethical ingredients and the local farmers who produce them.

Chef of the Year: Clark Deutscher, Hanks, Nowhere and Ate *A Restaurant

1001 Douglas Street  |   $$-$$$ |  atearestaurant.com/hanks-a-restaurant  |  Reservations suggested

Clark Deutscher is the first to admit that he’s not a chef, in the strictly “culinary school, Red Seal-certified” sense of the word. He’s a hard-working and creative cook, but his restaurant experience comes from his own entrepreneurial endeavours, with a focus on ethical ingredients and the local farmers who produce them.

“I read a lot, I travel a lot, and I just love food,” says Deutscher, who started his career as a banker and now has three restaurants, clustered together in the historic Sussex Building on Douglas Street.

It all started with his obsession with competitive slow BBQ and a little joint in Ucluelet. A decade ago, he opened the meat-centric Hanks in Victoria, where he honed his cooking skills and gathered a solid following for his nose-to-tail butchery.

At Nowhere and his other two restaurants on Douglas Street, chef Clark Deutscher brings a hungry creativity to local, seasonal and ethically raised ingredients like this tender duck breast.
At Nowhere and his other two restaurants on Douglas Street, chef Clark Deutscher brings a hungry creativity to local, seasonal and ethically raised ingredients like this tender duck breast.

Next came Nowhere, with co-owner Devon Revelle, channelling the same hyper-local ideas in seafood-forward tasting menus. Last year, his wife Jonna — a geologist with an MBA — gave up her day job to open Ate, a casual spot showcasing her Filipino family recipes, with a modern twist.

Deutscher is in charge of developing menus for all three restaurants — as seasonal ingredients arrive from their farm partners, he riffs on the possibilities. At Hanks there’s a $50 “Today’s Best Things” menu and a $75 chef’s tasting menu, along with a variety of innovative plates. It’s a scratch kitchen on every level — whether the Filipino purple yam (ube) buns made with house-milled Island grains for Ate or the ricotta cheese for smoked sturgeon agnolotti.

Deutscher, a self-described food geek, happily juggles it all and it’s always an adventure to see what he’ll cook up next.
Deutscher, a self-described food geek, happily juggles it all and it’s always an adventure to see what he’ll cook up next.

A zero-waste approach makes for innovative, and sometimes challenging, ideas. The Count Chocula pig blood, chocolate and cinnamon ice cream, based on an Italian dessert, is just one example.

Lobster, scallops and morels at Nowhere.
Lobster, scallops and morels at Nowhere.

Runners-up:

Corbin Mathany, Ugly Duckling Dining & Provisions

Ken Nakano, Inn at Laurel Point