“Let me tell you, this is one of the rare meetings where I can let loose,” begins Chef Laurent Dagenais with a mischievous grin as he lights up a joint just 20 seconds into our scheduled morning Zoom call. “I thought, why not do it for Cannabis Now?” he adds, his face lighting up with a playful boyish charm that has helped him become a rising social media star in the culinary world. As he takes a puff from the joint, Dagenais exudes a confident and easygoing demeanor, which is likely why he has amassed nearly four million followers on Instagram and TikTok. His fun and lighthearted approach to cooking with fine dining ingredients has turned him into somewhat of a celebrity, but he never takes himself too seriously. In his videos, Dagenais can be seen sabering champagne bottles with his kitchen knives, playfully tossing ingredients into sizzling pans, and, of course, exhaling thick clouds of smoke in the kitchen. However, despite his open love for cannabis, he does not consider himself a “cannabis chef.” Instead, he is a classically trained chef who enjoys incorporating cannabis into his cooking and is not afraid to show it as part of his authentic self and creative process. While many chefs credit their love for food to childhood memories spent in the kitchen with loved ones, Dagenais admits that his culinary roots were planted elsewhere. “My story doesn’t begin with my Italian Nonna,” he says. After graduating from college, Dagenais was unsure of what to do next, so he worked at a local skate shop. “My parents were going to start making me pay rent with a skate shop salary,” he jokes, so he decided to enroll in culinary school to explore other career options. “That’s when my passion for cooking really kicked in,” he says. “It opened up a whole new world of knowledge and techniques.” This newfound passion led Dagenais out of the skate shop and into the kitchen of a French bistro, followed by a job working under a renowned French chef known for his strict military-style approach to cooking. “I learned more about cleaning on that job than cooking,” Dagenais recalls. “But it taught me discipline and the importance of keeping a clean and organized kitchen. Before that, I was more interested in partying and smoking weed, but this job was like going into the army. I worked there for a year, which made me more disciplined in the kitchen and in life.” With a newfound focus, Dagenais went on to work in several fine dining kitchens across Canada before landing at Araxi Restaurant in Whistler, British Columbia. “That’s where I really learned about fine dining and the importance of using high-quality ingredients,” he says. “I also learned about the importance of presentation and plating, which has become a big part of my style.” Despite his success in the fine dining world, Dagenais never lost his love for cannabis. “It’s always been about cooking for me,” he says. “But I realized that I couldn’t be truly happy if I wasn’t cooking with cannabis.
