Hot Docs Interview: Top Toronto Chef Revisits His Indian Street Kid Past in Born Hungry
By Jim Slotek
Rosedale restaurateur Sash Simpson got a flood of memories on a visit to the Indian city of Chennai, where he’d been rescued from the streets as a barely school-age child and sent to Canada.
Only one thing was missing: his first language.
“The smells, the colour, the complete chaos, it gave me a flashback. It’s almost like a movie in my head,” says Simpson. He is in fact, the central figure of a movie, the Hot Docs feature Born Hungry, which debuts at the festival today (April 26).
But his native tongue, Tamil, did not similarly return. “I wish it did. I forgot my language in, believe it or not, one month after I got to Canada. And it’s only because I had nobody to talk to in my household, and everybody spoke English.”
The saga of a street kid in the former city of Madras, “begging and eating out of garbage cans,” and his growth into the proprietor of a self-named high-end restaurant in one of Canada’s richest neighbourhoods, is a success story of astronomical odds. And director Barry Avrich’s profile of Simpson resonates in both Canada and India (Indian actress and singer Priyanka Chopra Jonas is one of the producers).
It also tells the story of one of Canada’s most ardent foster-parent families, that of Sandra and Lloyd Simpson. The couple helped found Families For Children, which arranged adoptions for orphaned kids in places like Khmer Rouge-era Cambodia. Sandra and Lloyd raised an extended family of their own, up to 32 kids in a mansion in Forest Hill, yet another Toronto neighbourhood of millionaires and billionaires.
A child she called her own, Sandra lived to see Simpson become a prominent chef at Toronto’s North 44, appear repeatedly on TV with North 44’s Mark McEwan on The Food Network’s The Heat, and start his own restaurant, Sash.
With a family of his own and a business that’s survived the pandemic and thrived, Simpson considers himself blessed. Still, Born Hungry follows him in his search for the part that’s missing – including a detective search for any members of his Indian family who might still be alive 40 years later. If it sounds a lot like the real-life story in the movie Lion, he has heard that before. And no, he hasn’t seen it.
“Everybody asks me that. But my reply to that is, ‘Y’know what? I lived that!’”
But the fact that he isn’t alone with his story isn’t lost on him. His visit to his old orphanage is the moment in Born Hungry, when he breaks emotionally.
“That’s why when you watch the movie, and I say it from my heart, nobody should be in that situation,” he says. “They should be adopted and have a family. Not everybody gets a chance and I got lucky.”
“All I wanted was a second chance, and I took advantage of it. I worked 18 to 20 hours a day every day. I always say, ‘Y’know what? You will get chances. But what are you going to do with those fucking chances?’”
If Chennai was a voyage of personal discovery, it was also a gastronomic one for one of Canada’s pre-eminent chefs. At one point, he is treated to a personally cooked dinner by MasterChef India winner Shipra Khanna.
“I’m not an Indian chef. I never felt I could cook Indian, but I do my version of it. But going to India and trying those flavours. I mean, the spices are endless, stuff I had never even heard of, and pronouncing each item was hard for me.
“But since doing the movie, I’ve incorporated more Indian fusion into my menus. Everybody that knows me knows I’m all about flavours. People will tell you, when you go to Sash, you get nothing but flavours.”
His search for his past is still ongoing, but Simpson is fairly certain about his future, including maintaining his restaurant and his determination to uphold his family’s legacy.
“My mother passed away not too long ago, and the next of kin that’s going to run this whole thing will be my sister Melanie (Sandra’s biological daughter) and I’m going to have my hands in it as well.
“Melanie has a big task. She’s often going to India, and I do what I can do, getting donations. And we’re going to make sure that my mom left a legacy that will keep going as long as we live.”
As for his two sons, Simpson says, “They know they’re part Indian, and they know their daddy was born in India. And I want to take them to India.
“I always tell them, ‘In this world, guys, you have to do two things right to make you who you are. Don’t forget where you’re from, and always think of others.’”
Born Hungry, screening as part of Hot Docs April 26, 6:30 pm, Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema; Thurs, May 2, 5:15 pm, TIFF Lightbox 2; Sun, May 5, 2:15 pm. TIFF Lightbox 1.