Before heading to class, Dean Braknis makes sure his uniform is clean, pressed and up to standard.
He’s used to the routine, after decades serving on Royal Canadian Navy patrol boats, frigates and destroyers. He retired as a lieutenant-commander. Now he’s traded the bridge for the kitchen, as a student at Ottawa’s Le Cordon Bleu culinary school.
The uniform isn’t the only reminder of his past career. There’s discipline, hierarchy and camaraderie, too.
“It’s just like being on a ship,” he said. “You’re all in it together. You all have to do the same dish. You all have to help each other out, and you tend to get in trouble together and you tend to have victories together, too.”
He calls the head chef his commanding officer and the students are the troops, sailors or airmen. His instructor is like a drill sergeant, only nicer.
“I almost treat it like a mission,” he says.
VAC covering tuition
Braknis is one of eight veterans now studying at the Ottawa location of Le Cordon Bleu. It’s part of a steady upward trend, according to the school’s director of sales and marketing Abhishek Sharma.
The first veteran student he remembers enrolled in 2019, but then word started spreading that Veterans Affairs Canada would cover the cost of tuition — which can run up to $30,000 — through an education and training benefit.
They can find a similar kind of an environment here in the kitchen where it’s all about teamwork, discipline, precision.– Abhishek Sharma, Le Cordon Bleu
“Our institute was always eligible for the funding,” Sharma said. “It’s just that not many people knew about it. So what we have done consciously over the last six to eight months is have that conversation with Veterans Affairs Canada.”
The institute is now on a national resource directory, which functions as a sort of endorsement from Veterans Affairs. According to Sharma, about 30 veterans have graduated so far.
“When veterans study with us, they kind of relate to the ethos and the discipline that they have had in the services,” he said.
“They can find a similar kind of an environment here in the kitchen where it’s all about teamwork, discipline, precision.”
Their instructors seem to appreciate their attention to detail. Pastry chef instructor Beatrice Dupasquier said the veterans bring more organization to the class, as well as their extensive life experience and curiosity.
Head pastry chef instructor Yann Le Coz, who did mandatory service in the French navy, said veterans often want to give back to their communities, whether it’s through military service or cooking.
“As we know, food brings people together,” he said. “For some people, it’s a therapy.”
‘You follow orders’
Paul Fuller is one of the latest recruits to Le Cordon Bleu. He’s now in an introductory course — a sort of basic training where he’s made soup, salad, risotto and puff pastry. He spent Wednesday afternoon blanching tomatoes and filleting sole.
“I was always interested in cooking,” said Fuller. “I wanted to become a chef, but my mother dissuaded me and said, ‘Do that as a hobby.'”
He spent his childhood in Cub Scouts and Cadets, and learned he thrived on structure and discipline. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces and served in the Corps of Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. After 32 years, he retired as a colonel.
He was drawn to the military by the esprit de corps — the push to overcome challenges together as a unit. He’s finding the same thing in the kitchen.
“They have a hierarchy system just like us with ranks,” he said. “You follow orders of the people above you, they tell you what to do and you execute them to your best possible means and in the time required.”
Sharma said veterans have graduated from the program and gone on to prestigious positions in commercial kitchens, including at the Château Laurier.
Fuller said he hopes to work as a chef at a senior citizen’s home, possibly Ottawa’s Perley Health, which caters to older veterans.
Braknis doesn’t want to work in a commercial kitchen at all. He might do private events, but he’s mainly in this for the food.
“I thought I could cook until I got here back in April, and then you realize you don’t know anything about cooking,” he said.
“Everyone has to eat. And if you’re going to learn how to cook, you might as well learn from the French, right? They take their food very seriously.”
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