For the past 10 years Trevor Ditzel has likely been cooking you meals at restaurants throughout the region, but now he’s taken the helm of his own restaurant, Relish.
Ditzel – who is originally from Ontario – fell in love with cooking at a young age.
“My father was a single dad of three people. I saw my mother on the weekends,” he said. “My nan moved from England and came over and kind of took the mother role of the household. She started cooking everyday for us from scratch because my dad worked a lot.”
Out of the three in his family Ditzel was always the one in the kitchen helping out peeling potatoes or wherever he was needed.
“That was where I fell in love with food,” he said.
But it was in the kitchen of the Rob Roy Dinning Room at the Banff Springs Hotel where Ditzel decided to pursue cooking as a profession.
He had gone to Banff on a work placement while doing his hotel management degree.
“They started feeding me rack of lamb, beef tenderloin, duck confit and duck breast. Things that I’d never had before and I was just in awe of the food. I just fell in love with it immediately,” he said.
His goal as a chef was to open a restaurant in a small town on the busiest street in the community.
“I’ve kind of reached my goal of what I wanted to do and my dream,” said Ditzel.
Customers at Relish will also notice a change of the menu to what Ditzel calls “Grandmother meets gourmet.”
“Nelsonites really do have a craving for the finer things,” he said. “But at the same time they really enjoy the mom’s cooking type of thing.”
Relish is located at 301 Baker Street. For reservations call 250-352-5232.