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Pastry chef's career follows series of adventures

Jackie Kai Ellis will be one of four celebrity chefs gracing the stage at the River Rock in Richmond at the end of the month for a unique culinary event
Jackie Kai Ellis
Beaucoup Bakery and Cafe owner Kai Ellis will be one of four featured chefs at the From the Kitchen to the Boardroom event Jan. 28 at the River Rock Casino Resort.

‘Life is too short to not try things and too long to do nothing of consequence.”

Jackie Kai Ellis makes the statement with conviction and no hesitation, quickly backing up her points with a rapid run down of her life to date and challenges for the immediate future.

Kai Ellis, one of four featured chefs at the From the Kitchen to the Boardroom event Jan. 28 at the River Rock Casino Resort, said she was always passionate about baking but only got around to actually getting her hands on the business after pursuing other challenges, each one preparing for the next step ahead.

The owner of Vancouver’s Beaucoup Bakery and Cafe started out her business career using her fine arts degree in photography from the Ontario College of Art and Design to establish a successful design firm specializing in branding — from designing business logos to rolling out a complete corporate image.

But all the while she harboured a love for baking, something she nurtured growing up, and would, in her time away from the design firm, test her skill by producing cakes that were often given away to friends.

“It started to be an expensive hobby, so I started selling them at farmers’ markets on the weekends,” she said.

That’s when she experienced her lightbulb moment and shifted gears from designing to becoming a pastry chef and embarked on a year-long sabbatical that included a four-month course to study the art of French pastry at Ecole Gastronomique Bellouet Conseil in Paris.

In the remaining eight months Ellis sought to expand her palate by travelling the globe in search of the best cuisines in disparate places — from Italy to Rawanda, and many others in between.

When she settled back down in Vancouver in 2012, Kai Ellis set up Beaucoup Bakery and Cafe based on the knowledge she acquired not only as a pastry chef, but from doing plenty of research into the marketplace and eating trends.

“I tend to get very passionate and obsessed with one thing at a time and tend to go all the way down the rabbit hole to see if I can do something,” she said.

“Then it’s on the the next adventure.”

And for Kai Ellis, that means getting holed up in a cabin to write her memoirs over the coming five to six months.

It’s a task she was primed to do following a string of successful ventures into the field of writing travel pieces that drew on a recent business venture of leading visitors to the best eateries in Paris.

“I’ve always been a word nerd and kind of fell into the writing thing,” she said.

But while her career has taken some unexpected turns, she’s been able to chart a pretty steady course.

“With anything there’s also a measure of fortune involved,” she said.

“When I opened the bakery, it was at a time when there wasn’t much in the way of French pastry available in Vancouver. And it happened at a time when everyone wanted to be a celebrity chef.

“But to be sure, with every bit of good luck and timing someone experiences and profits from, it only accounts for a small part of their success. The rest comes down to very hard work.”

From the Kitchen to the Boardroom is hosted by the Richmond Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the Richmond News.

Tickets for the event are $250 and include a unique dining experience, plus a question and answer session with Ellis, Brett Turner of Droski/Turner Hospitality Management, Quang Dang, executive chef at West, and Virkram Vij, who has established several, highly regarded Indian restaurants and is one of the country’s most well-known celebrity chefs.

To order tickets, go online at richmondchamber.ca.