Katie Laliberté spent weekends in 2020 working the Heydays patio and leverages her day-job skills to support all the tech systems that make up a busy restaurant. She’s a writer and sometime bookseller, and is currently working on a restaurant romance!

Freddy Laliberté opened numerous food concepts in Toronto prior to relocating to Sauble Beach to open Heydays. He researched and developed recipes for the hard-hitting classics that customers keep coming back for, and specializes in sourcing excellent products and keeping quality high in all Heydays dishes.

Evan Baulch is an operational mastermind in charge of pulling all the pieces of complex restaurant operations together and keeping things running smoothly day to day. His vast experience in high-end hospitality establishments in Toronto and the Guelph area helped him to develop the practices that weave rhythm, routine and consistency in all that they do.

Emma Baulch has long been known for her tastemaking culinary prowess and is now responsible for finding and hiring staff, creating the best hospitality teams in Bruce County. She is the queen of desserts and their forever HR expert.

**

Heydays at the June Motel is a gorgeous cookbook, with recipes that speak to classic summer good times. What was your goal in putting the cookbook together?

Dining at Heydays is such a special experience, and we wanted guests to be able to bring it home with them and enjoy it throughout the year. While a lot of the dishes are classics, we learned some tricks along the way that we’re happy to share to help add some Heydays magic to your entertaining.
 
Many of the recipes are twists on summer classics—lobster rolls, smash burgers, mac and cheese. Tell us a bit about one of your own favourite recipes.

We really love a hot lobster roll which can actually be a bit rare since it’s more common to see the cold lobster salad version. We were very intentional about this roll – we use a layer of lettuce between the lobster and the bun so the bun doesn’t get soggy, we toast the outside of the bun so that it’s the first thing to hit your mouth and we always save the leftover lobster butter to mix into our lobster mac and cheese.
 
What are some of your go-to staples for summer cooking?

Something about summer just demands burgers so we make our smashburger at home quite a lot. We cook it in a cast iron pan on the barbecue side burner to make the whole neighbourhood jealous. We balance out our love for burgers with an ever-present salad like the Sprouts and Greens with Sherry Vinaigrette.

For readers not familiar with the June Motel, tell us a bit about the story of the motel and restaurant.

April Brown and Sarah Sklash first opened The June Motel in Picton in 2017, a motel experience straight out of the good old days. They found their second location in Sauble Beach and it included an indoor-outdoor restaurant space that had so much potential. This restaurant became Heydays and we signed on to create the menu that would be the perfect accompaniment to relaxing summer days by the pool.
 
What advice do you have for Canadian summer cooks (and 49th Shelf readers) hoping to make simple, delicious, no-stress meals to share with family and friends this summer?

Barbecue everything! Keeps the kitchen clean and adds so much summer flavour to meats and vegetables. We recommend keeping our caesar dressing and dijonnaise on hand to dress up all your favourite dishes. We toss our charred broccoli in caesar dressing, but you can get creative and put it on anything. We put our dijonnaise on our smashburger but it’s also great with steak, sausages, chicken, you name it! We keep a batch in a squeeze bottle in the fridge.

**

Charred Broccoli Caesar

While we might be best known for our Hot Lobster Rolls (page 129), this is one of our more popular dishes, and certainly the recipe we get asked for the most. It was originally inspired by a broccolini version at a restaurant in Prince Edward County that was popular around the time that The June Motel opened in Picton, Ontario. We couldn’t get it out of our heads, so we made our own at-home Caesar dressing, opted for broccoli instead of broccolini, and added a little crunch with Heydays Everything Bagel Mix—what Freddy calls his “bird seed.”

SERVES 4

1 large head of broccoli
1/4 cup (60 mL) Confit Garlic Oil (page 162), or use vegetable oil
1 tsp (5 mL) kosher salt
1 tsp (5 mL) freshly ground
black pepper
2 to 4 tbsp (30 to 60 mL) water
1 cup (250 mL) Heydays Caesar Dressing
1/4 cup (60 mL) Heydays Everything Bagel Mix (page 88)
3/4 cup (175 mL) freshly grated Parmesan cheese (see Heydays Tip)
6 line lemons

Using a sharp knife, cut the broccoli in half. Lay the halves cut-side down on the cutting board, and then make about six pie-like slices so that you are left with long florets that have some surface area and will get nice colour while cooking. You might want to make a few more lengthwise cuts so you’re left with manageable pieces for eating. Toss the florets in a bowl with the oil, salt, and pepper.

Get your cast iron or heavy-bottomed pan very hot over medium- high heat, and then add the broccoli pieces. Cook the broccoli until you get hints of char in the florets. Add a few tablespoons of water to give the broccoli a bit of a steam bath. (This broccoli is also great done on a grill in the summertime.)

The broccoli should be nicely charred with some slight crunch left. Once you’re happy with the colour of the broccoli, remove it from the heat and lay it out flat on a tray to cool. Ideally, do this about a half hour before serving so that the broccoli is just slightly warm.

Just before plating, toss the cooked broccoli in about 1/2 cup (125 mL) of Heydays Caesar Dressing, adding more until you achieve a sauciness that you like. Using tongs, divide the broccoli between six serving plates or serve together on a large platter.

Top with about 2 tbsp (30 ml) Heydays Everything Bagel Mix per serving. Follow with a sprinkling of grated Parmesan overtop.

Serve with a line lemon on the side, and encourage guests to squeeze it over the broccoli for an extra zing of freshness to cut through the rich dressing.

HEYDAYS TIP: We keep any leftover Parmesan rinds in the freezer until we’re ready to make our Parmesan Stock for Cauliflower & Parmesan Soup. We recommend you grate the Parmesan with a fine-toothed grater or the small holes of a box grater.

Heydays Caesar Dressing

MAKES 4 CUPS (1 L), ENOUGH FOR UP TO 5 CHARRED BROCCOLI CAESARS

1/2 cup (125 mL) finely grated
Parmesan cheese
2 1/2 tbsp (37 mL) Dijon mustard
2 tbsp (30 mL) Worcestershire sauce (see Heydays Tip)
1 1/2 tbsp (22 mL) fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp (15 mL) finely grated garlic
1 1/2 tsp (7 mL) freshly ground
black pepper
4 cups (1 L) mayonnaise

This is a bit of an Iron Chef Caesar dressing. When we were first menu planning for the restaurant, we made this version using just those things we had on hand at home, leaving out the traditional anchovies or anchovy paste. We liked it so much on the broccoli that we decided to use it in the restaurant. Our version gets its umami hit from Worcestershire sauce, which is actually a fermented anchovy sauce. (Did you know they just call it Worcester [woo-ster] sauce in England? To think we’ve been struggling to say it correctly all these years!)

In a large bowl, using a spatula, stir together the Parmesan, Dijon, Worcestershire, lemon juice, garlic, and pepper. Fold in the mayo. Cover and refrigerate for up to a week. Add to everything.

Excerpted from Heydays at the June Motel: Beach Town Classics by Freddy Laliberté and Evan Baulch, with Katie Laliberté and Emma Baulch. ©2024 Home Phone Holdings Inc and 2745690 Ontario Ltd. Published by House of Anansi Press www.houseofanansi.com