2023 Portland Wine Week Chef Feature: Chef Matt Gin of EVO Kitchen + BAr
Sponsored by Buoy Local.
Wine and Food are made for each other. Since the invention of wine, human beings wine and dine together to stimulate our minds and appetites. This year for Portland Wine Week we wanted to bring you in to meet some of the chefs that help make our Portland Wine Week so special and make this great city so renowned for its food. We will be showcasing 5 Chefs that we love, who will be hosting events and participating in this year's Portland Wine Week and bringing you closer to the kitchen than you may ever have gotten before. We love Chefs here in Portland and are excited to bring you the Portland Wine Week Chef Showcase series brought to you by Buoy Local.
Chef Matt Ginn, executive chef at Evo Kitchen + Bar, Twelve, Chebeague Island Inn, and Chopped Hometown Hero, invited me into his kitchen for a look at how he operates two of the most popular restaurants in Portland. From the outback steakhouse to winning chopped, chef Ginn has had a true culinary journey and has come out shining. A local to Maine, he grew up working in local restaurants while in high school. After some time away learning the craft he returned to the city a few years ago to bring his culinary expertise to one of the fastest growing food scenes in America and has since risen to become one of the top chefs of said scene. Quickly realizing that college was not the path for him, he left and began to pursue a career in cooking and hasn't looked back since. Working the line and leading a team allowed Chef Ginn to continue to be competitive while growing his skills and his craft.
Portland Wine Week Chef Showcase is Sponsored by Buoy Local.
Working in the industry since a teenager, like many chefs Matt got the bug early and couldn't quite shake it. After a short stint at college where he went for track and cross country running, planning on being an English teacher he decided that path was not meant for him and he moved to Arizona to explore new horizons. There he ended up working on the line at an Outback Steakhouse, that is when things really changed for him. He realized he loved the intensity of the line and the adrenaline of working as a team in a faced-paced environment and decided that cooking was going to be his way of bridging his love for sport and his competitive nature with a love for food, creating a successful career. After deciding to delve into the world of cooking he moved on from outback steakhouse, back home to Portland where he took up a line cook position at restaurant Five-Fifty Five under chef Steve Corry. Where he spent many years cooking and learning all that he could from one of the best chefs in Portland at that time. After Five-Fifty Five he figured that it was time to grow his skill even further and made the move to Boston.
In Boston, he worked under some of the best chefs in the city at the time and worked at improving his craft. Ginn grew his skills and eventually rose to being a sous at a very successful restaurant in Cambridge. He tells me that it was during this time he had one of his most important learning experiences as a chef—That one of the biggest lessons he has learned is that “a cook or really anyone spending any significant amount of time in this industry, you need to acknowledge that sometimes taking a step back, whether it be financially or from a title or responsibility level can ultimately provide you with a giant leap forward.” Ginn was running a multimillion-dollar restaurant as a sous, making great money, leading a kitchen, and cooking good food. A position that many chefs might feel entirely comfortable with staying in, but not Ginn. He felt stagnated and knew that if he really wanted to grow his craft, (which according to Ginn cooking is certainly a craft and not an art) he would have to leave his cushy position and step back down to the line cook position at a higher-end restaurant. So he did just that. He took a hefty pay cut and moved back down in order to continue to learn and grow. Now he has become better than ever before and the proof is right there in every bite of his food. Not to mention when his food literally won recognition when he cooked the winning dish on the hit cooking show “Chopped.”
It's no question that Matt Ginn is an incredibly talented chef and that fact was proven even more after his win on a 2018 episode of “Chopped” where he wowed Martha Stewart enough to take home the winning prize. When I asked him about his experience he spoke about it fondly. Winning Chopped is no easy feat but he believes it was a formative experience for him. Matt is a person that can appreciate competition. Being put against some of the best chefs in the country, chef Ginn had to work in a faced paced and stressful environment in order to perform for some of the most important people in the food world. Essentially what working in a fine restaurant on any given night is like. He feels that competition brings out the best in people and he believed it helped bring out the best in him as well. While the victory was a few years back he tells me that he still enjoys competition to this day. When I asked if he still felt as though he was a competitive person he told me that while he focuses on other things such as running three restaurants that “Yes I'm still a fairly competitive person. Yeah. If we're gonna race in some chicken butchery or peeling asparagus or have a cooking competition, I'm definitely gonna give it my best.” After eating at Evo and tasting his food you can feel the urge to win over your taste buds in every bite, and he certainly succeeds at that.
From working as a line cook at Outback Steakhouse to winning the hit cooking show "Chopped,” and now running three of the most sought after restaurants in the Portland area, Chef Ginn has crafted himself into a chef to truly admire. Endlessly learning and taking lessons to heart he recognizes the importance of taking a step back to move forward and is continually pushing himself to improve his craft. His passion for competition has not only helped him win a competitive national cooking show, but also become one of the top chefs in the northeast and it is evident in the incredible dishes he creates at Evo. Chef Ginn's culinary journey is a testament to the power of hard work, dedication, and a love for cooking, and it is inspiring to see him continue to push the boundaries of what it means to be a top chef.
