Two Toronto sports centres have new food boss

Rob Bartley will oversee some really high volume feeding in his new job.

He left his post as executive chef at Toronto’s Four Seasons Hotel to take up a new post last month, director of culinary and executive chef of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.

This puts him in charge of foodservice at the Air Canada Centre, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors, and site of three restaurants: the Platinum Club Restaurant, Air Canada Club and Hot stove club.

MLSE also has a catering business and more than 50 concession stands at two sports venues. Besides the ACC, MLSE has BMO Field, home of the Toronto FC soccer club.

MLSE describes foodservice at BMO Field as “the most diverse concession menu in professional sports…”

The three restaurants at ACC serve more than 80,000 customers a year, and almost 3.4 million fans come to ACC and BMO Field each year.

Bartley’s responsibilities include making sure Leafs, Raptors and Toronto FC team members are well fed before and after each game.

On top of all this, MLSE will be opening its new $500-million sports and entertainment development, Maple Leaf Square, next to ACC in 2010, and Barley will play a role in developing the menu for the new complex’s two restaurants.

Bartley has 15 years of solid restaurant experience behind him. A graduate of the Stratford Chefs School, he worked under Susur Lee at Lotus, Chris McDonald at Avalon and Lynn Crawford at Four Seasons.

He started with Four Seasons in 2002 and moved up from sous chef, to executive sous chef and then to the top kitchen post, overseeing two of the city’s top restaurants, Ruffles and Studio Café.

Before taking the top toque position at the Four Seasons, he went to New York with Crawford last year to participate in the Food Network’s Iron Chef America competition.

Bartley replaces Brad Long, the original executive chef at the ACC when it opened in 1999, who left this year to pursue other enterprises, including a partnership the new Vertical restaurant in Toronto.