zoe o’doherty

Zoe’s passion for her trade started young.  She accepted her first restaurant job when she was fourteen and attended cooking school at Algonquin College right out of high school.   Upon graduation she spent four years at Juniper Kitchen and Wine Bar in her home town of Ottawa -one of the first restaurants in Ontario to embrace local and seasonal cooking.   During her time there Zoe was mentored by Chef Richard Nigro and was influenced and inspired by his passion for food and reverence for a diversity of cuisines.

She left Juniper to embark on a 128 day canoe trip following the historic voyageur fur trade routes into Northern Ontario and then after a stint on the prairies moved west to Vancouver Island.  She’s lived in Victoria for seven years now and during that time has worked in some of the best kitchens in the city including Zambri’s, Cascadia Whole Foods Bakery, Truffles Catering, Feys+Hobbs and the Marina Restaurant.

Zoe is an avid mushroom hunter and enjoys foraging for food both inside and out of the city.  She notes that the urban neigbourhood of Fernwood has some great fruit trees.  She is also a passionate pie maker. She won the Lifecycles pie competition in 2004 and is a contributor to a cook book called Killer Pies.
She is excited to have recently excepted a job as the Chef and General Manager of La Piola Restaurant.