As 2021 persists with stay-at-home orders and indoor dining still prohibited, hard-working cooks like Keith Siu are continuing to find new ways to prepare food and connect with others to create an innovative dining experience.
Siu, a 24-year-old Scarborough native who’s cooked in kitchens across the city, is also a sous chef at the famed Sunny’s Chinese pop-up that has scorched the Toronto food scene these past couple of months. With the idea of indoor restaurant dining still looming in uncertainty, many in the industry continue to try out new ways to make some money. For Siu, it’s one of the reasons he started Shy Popups.
“I spent six to eight months not cooking. I’ve just been itching to be back in the kitchen and create and make some really tasty food,” says Siu.
The concept is clear and simple: friends that he’s had the pleasure of meeting throughout his years in the industry come to him to collaborate on a pop-up menu. With nearly no limitations or cuisine to tailor to, the possibilities are endless, and Siu hopes that it can just be a space where him and his friends can come together, have some fun and bring amazing food to Toronto.
His first pop-up, which sold out within a few days, is an Italian-inspired menu with his friend Mathew Asturi, who he met while working at Buca.
According to Siu, the pop-ups out of Shy are not going to be a structured or planned out concept. He says that his vision for it was to be “super sporadic and unplanned...to keep the cooking volatile and fun.”
Keith Siu (right) and Mathew Asturi (left) are bringing an Italian-inspired menu for Shy Popups' first menu in Toronto.
Pop-ups are a vital component of Toronto’s flourishing food scene––they offer a taste of new innovations from the minds of the city’s wide demographic of cooks and a novelty dining experience that feels exclusive and unique.
As the effects of the pandemic ramped up towards the end of the summer into the fall of 2020, more restaurants, cooks and chefs were quickly dreaming up new ways to bring fresh ideas to the forefront. Given the extra time and space available as well as support within their culinary circles, many were able to take those ideas and incubate them in their mother restaurants.
“There are a lot of people in my generation and the generation above me, of cooks and chefs, that have not been given the opportunity,” says Siu. “These pop-ups and the culture that’s kind of forming in the pandemic is giving everybody a chance to speak with their food.”
Some notable chefs have taken their talents into other ventures amidst the pandemic: Ryan Campbell, the chef and owner at the renowned Il Covo, stepped down last month as Chef de Cuisine to focus on Gertie’s––a decadent peanut butter pie that he and his girlfriend Sara Steep created whilst in lockdown.
Basilio Pesce, the well-known chef of Osteria Rialto, has been selling out his small batch of lasagne trays on the side, with plans to expand his offerings in the near future.
While restaurants have struggled to stay afloat throughout the whole lockdown situation, the extra time, space and undying love for creating great food has formed a more prominent scene for pop-ups in Toronto.
Toronto can expect to see a surplus of pop-up concepts in the upcoming year as cooks and chefs continue to diversify their portfolio of food and showcase what they can do.
Siu has worked at a number of restaurants that vary in cuisines, whether it be Italian at Buca and Il Covo or even Chilean cuisine at the world-renowned Boragó where he staged in 2019. His latest gig with Sunny’s, according to him, is the first time he’s cooked Chinese fare professionally.
Mathew Asturi preps for menu testing for their upcoming Italian-inspired pop-up through Shy.
Shy Popups serves as a collaborative avenue for Siu and his friends, who will eventually work alongside him. He says that it’s an opportunity for him to learn from his fellow cooks and friends to understand what their personal culinary experiences have done to elevate their cooking pedigree.
“Mat, who I’m doing this first pop-up with, has been at Buca for a long time and has worked his way up to junior sous,” he says. “I never experienced that, and it’s cool to pick his brain on that.”
Shy Popups may be a sporadic and unstructured concept, but it’s representative of the state that Toronto’s restaurant industry is in right now, as well as a great example of how those in the industry are still inspired to do more in times when they’ve been forced to do less.
The concept is open to working in any space that is available to them. You can stay up to date on upcoming pop-up events through the Shy Popups Instagram.
