bcbusiness.ca OctOber 2014 BCBusiness 53
work visa after a chance meeting with
Ivor Petrak, the general manager of the
Banff Springs Hotel, in Vienna, where
the young Vij was working as a chef after
training in Salzburg. "Canada was the
only place I wanted to come," says Vij. "It
was a young country and I felt as a young
immigrant I'd be respected. Ivor told me,
'Guys like you should come to this coun-
try because you'll be successful.'"
Yet Banff in the late '80s didn't
impress Vij, who'd grown used to the
dainty European ways of cigar clubs
and delicate fussed-over French cuisine.
"It was all prime rib," he remembers.
"Huge portions and everything eaten
so quickly! For six months I just did
my thing and I didn't want to be there,
but then I looked around and realized I
couldn't own property in Europe. It was
so expensive, but at least here in Canada
I could own something. I'd figure it out."
After the death of Petrak in 1992, Vij
went west to Vancouver and took a front-
of-house job with one of the city's most
respected restaurateurs, John Bishop.
"I honestly had no sense of his hidden
qualities at all," says Bishop, laughing.
"I hired him because he had a European
hotel school background and a good
grounding in service and wine knowl-
edge. He joined us as a food expediter,
which is a very detailed job in fine din-
ing, checking every last detail to make
sure it's perfect. He was a very hard
worker and people liked him a lot, but
he had this burning desire to have his
own business." Two years later, unde-
terred by Bishop's advice to not risk it
and after being turned down by a poten-
tial investor who thought the idea of a
modern Indian restaurant was "stupid,"
he left to launch Vij's with a $20,000
loan from his father and $10,000 of his
own money.
LATEST ADDITION
In May, Vij opened
My Shanti, a more
traditional Indian
restaurant, in Surrey.