Chefs: Past, Present and Global – A conversation with Massimo Capra

It’s hard to believe that this past January, Capra’s Kitchen, a casual Italian restaurant that has stayed one of Mississauga’s busiest hot spots since its much-anticipated opening in 2017, celebrated its eighth year in business. 

While it’s been almost 10 years of lunches, brunches, dinners and events for the restaurant that bears the name of its famous owner, it has been decades of hard work, challenges and successes for Massimo Capra. 

When Capra sat down with YourCityWithIN to talk about his culinary journey–the past, the present and the global influences that inform his approach to cooking–he said his love of food and passion for preparing it began in his early years when he was growing up in the northern Italian municipality of Soresina. 

Now, the 64-year-old chef, who started working in Toronto restaurants after arriving in the city over 40 years ago, has a number of acclaimed projects under his belt. He co-owned the higher-end Mistura Restaurant and attached Sopra Upper Lounge in Toronto, owned a now-closed hotspot in the Doha airport and lent his name to the long-standing Rainbow Room restaurant in Niagara Falls’ Crowne Plaza hotel. Now, he’s regularly spotted in Capra’s Kitchen and also operates Massimo’s Italian Fallsview Restaurant. 

While it’s been an interesting career that’s also included a stint as a judge on Chopped Canada, a popular outpost at Toronto Pearson International Airport and a number of cookbooks, it hasn’t always been easy. 

Here’s a look at his journey from what he playfully (but candidly) calls a “happy cook to a miserable restaurant owner.”  

Past

Born in the Lombardy region of Italy in 1960, Capra’s culinary training began at the Trattoria dall’ Amelia in Mestre (a town near Venice) and after that, he toiled in kitchens throughout Italy before moving to Toronto in 1982. 

Like many chefs, he realized he had a knack for cooking early. 

“I started cooking a long, long, long time ago,” he tells YourCithWithIN. 

“I remember distinctly making food for my neighbour, who was a construction worker. He was coming home late at night after the rest of the family had eaten. I would go and help out and make him fried eggs and spaghetti with tomato sauce and different things. I’ve always been in the kitchen. I always loved helping my mom make pasta, make gnocchi, you know, helping out with every meal. So it was almost like a natural progression.” 

Coming from a part of Italy that is less familiar to Canadian diners–including those of Italian descent who are more acquainted with the south of the country–Capra says it was sometimes a challenge to overcome preconceptions about ‘proper’ Italian cuisine. 

“[There’s] an idea that Italian food is one little square with 15 dishes in it. I’m from the north and most of the people here [in Canada] are from the south, so they are used to having Italian food that is totally different than what I do and they sometimes don’t understand that,” he says. 

Now, an uptick in international travel and the growth of social media–along with the increasing diversity in the GTA food scene–are making it easier to plan an Italian menu with rice-heavy options and even more Mediterranean-associated ingredients, such as lentils.

“Now we can actually do something that is completely different than the Italian that everybody knows and people will accept it,” he says. 

While Capra says he regrets not opening a restaurant earlier on in his career, he does say he made the right decision when it came to choosing projects (and people) that mattered. 

“My greatest victory was associating myself with people that were on the right track to do the right thing that people really enjoyed,” he says.  

“I made myself in the position that I am by really listening, observing and almost repeating but putting my own spin on things.” 

Capra also credits his success to knowing some tricks of the European trade that perhaps some Canadian chefs were not quite as familiar with. 

“I once worked in a restaurant that was populated by very, very well-traveled wealthy individuals and [one customer] was just a normal person who wanted a classic dish. She wanted a French-style omelette,” he says, adding that at that time, he was new to the country.

“I had learned French culinary techniques, so I was able to produce an omelette the way this customer wanted. After that, the compliments they rained down on me were just unbelievable. I still had that skill and that ability from the old world. It was just, it was just magic. That really got me all pumped up and I said ‘hey, you know what I can do something’, you know? It’s good for your morale and is good for your spirit.” 

Present

Now, Capra is honest about how tiring running a restaurant can be but says it’s the expected culmination of many chefs’ journeys. 

“It’s something that seems to be almost like a rite of passage, you know? You cook in the kitchen, you become a chef, you run your own kitchen, you run a kitchen for somebody else. And at some point you say, ‘okay, you know what? I can do this on my own.’” 

Challenges aside, Capra says the restaurant scene in Toronto and the GTA is a vibrant and exciting one that embraces cuisines from around the world, offering more chefs opportunities to showcase dishes that are near and dear to their hearts. 

“What is unique about the food scene in the GTA is that it has evolved in such a way that now, we can try whatever we want from anywhere in the world and we have the most authentic restaurants anywhere,” he says.

As for his signature northern Italian dish, he says his risotto is top-notch. 

“I excel at making risotto. That is my…that is my thing,” he says. 

“I mean, I have 13 different types of rice in my pantry from all over the world and I love it. Risotto is particular to my area in Italy. We eat a lot of rice every day.” 

As for his favourite place to eat right now, Capra says that he loves to head east to Miku Toronto, a popular Japanese restaurant on Bay Street when he’s in the mood to eat out. 

“You know what, I like all the fatty [tuna] stuff. So otoro, chutoro, you name it,” he says.

Global

Like many Canadians, Capra’s journey began abroad. Before coming to Toronto, he trained in Salsomaggiore, Parma and then moved on to kitchens at the Trattoria dall’ Amelia, the Hotel Royal in Courmayeur, the Hotel Savoy and the Drei Tannen restaurant in San Martino di Castrozza. 

When talking about learning to cook as a child, he says one memory that always sticks out is watching his grandmother painstakingly stir risotto over a fire at the farmhouse she called home in 1966. 

“She refused to cook on the stove. She always used the fire and she had this big pot made out of copper and she was cooking for me. I was visiting and she was making risotto and she was using a stick to turn it. She had the broth on the stove on the fire and it was boiling and she would add a little bit at a time and then she would stir it and stir it,” he says.  

“She was like, 86 years old already and she was still doing all the cooking. …For some reason, it stayed with me.” 

Capra’s grandmother would go on to break her femur in a fall later that year and die shortly after. 

After that, his family’s approach to cooking began to resonate even more strongly. 

“[My aunt] used to make this stale bread soaked in milk with anchovies and some tomato sauce and mozzarella,” he says, adding that they used milk from their own cows to make something truly, memorably delicious. 

Other than the food he ate at home, Capra says his favourite food growing up came from a local pizzeria. 

“My favourite restaurant growing up was a pizzeria in my hometown,” he says, adding that he always ordered the classic Margherita pizza.

Now, when he returns to Italy, he loves to enjoy a meal at Trattoria degli Artisti in Tontola.

“It’s very nice and I always order the marubini in brodo and cotechino,” he says, adding that the marubini, a tortellini served in broth, reminds him of his hometown. The cotechino, he says, is a special slow-cooked Italian sausage served with lentils. 

Ultimately, he says, there’s nothing more special and important than food. 

“Food is life. I mean, without food, we cannot survive. We do everything to acquire food, to grow food, to raise food. Some people eat to live and some people live to eat. There’s not a person in the world that can live on little pills, you know what I mean? You have to have food and you have to have fresh, clean water. That’s the only thing you need–and maybe some wine and beer here and there and that’s fine.”