Stewing in his Hamilton home, yearning for pandemic-free days and packed restaurants, Paul Aquino is 3,300 kilometres from his birthplace, and even further from his original career path.

As a youth, Aquino had a flair for the dramatic—literally. “I was into theatre growing up in Seattle, and it was something I was really passionate about in high school,” he says. “So when the opportunity came to audition for theatre schools, two of them accepted me, including the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City, where I enrolled.”

While the acting prospects never materialized, it was what Aquino did to pay the bills between those gigs that would shape his future. Rising from the position of food runner/bus boy to dining room captain at the famed 3-star Michelin restaurant Jean-Georges on Central Park West was just part of the wild ride for Aquino, whose love of wine led him to the Certified Sommelier exam, which he passed in 2013.

Today he is currently the sommelier at Victoria’s Steak and Seafood at the corner of King and Locke St. in Hamilton, Ontario. The focus is exquisite cuts of prime Canadian steak and seafood dishes, with share plates and entrees including fresh oysters, seared scallops and black cod.

Aquino’s focus, meanwhile, is on gradually building an international wine list at the newly opened restaurant, with plans to pursue Advanced certification with the Court of Master Sommeliers, and hopes of attaining the rank of Master Sommelier one day.

 

Your parents are from the Philippines. How did they come to settle in the U.S.?
“My mother earned a degree in nursing at the University of the Philippines and there is a need for healthcare workers in the U.S. My dad was sponsored by family already there. They actually met in Houston in the ’70s.

Your Instagram handle is Flipsomm83. I’m guessing 83 is for your birthyear. Is Flip for Filipino?
“It’s a spin on being Filipino. It was used as a derogatory term in the early 20th century. It’s my way of turning ‘flip’ from a negative to a positive and a reminder of who I am and where I come from.”

How’d you meet your wife, Cathy?
“She’s from Welland, and we met in New York City. After graduation, I did a few gigs in community theatre and some cabaret, but nothing too significant. If anything, it was Cathy who made more of a career out of it. She was heavily involved in the wardrobe department on Broadway and did a lot of costume work. I’d be waiting tables and auditioning during the day, while she was doing costumes for people like Bernadette Peters, Harvey Firestein and Hugh Jackman.”

I get the idea of working restaurant stints to earn money, but Jean-Georges is not exactly Swiss Chalet.
“I was working at places like Dave & Buster’s and Chili’s, when one of my managers asked if I’d ever thought about going into fine dining? I eventually landed an interview with Alex Wolf, the Service Director at Jean-Georges at the time. He asked me if I’d be willing to start as a food runner, and I said yes.”

“Food running was intense. It was the summer of 2010, no air conditioning, cooks yelling and screaming. They started me out at the hotel restaurant, which had nothing to do with Jean-Georges. But this was the Trump Hotel at Central Park West and I got a lot of exercise, running food up and down two flights of stairs several times a day.

“I was introduced to one of the sommeliers at the time, Bernard Sun, one of the first Asian-American sommeliers in New York City. He built an incredible wine-by-the-glass list at Jean Georges—Nuit-Saint-Georges Pinot Noir, Napa Valley Cabs, a 1946 Madeira, which was probably bottled in 1910, for about $120 for a two-ounce glass.”

Can you recall a particularly memorable wine order?
“I was waiting tables on a Sunday night in 2011. The Jean-Georges restaurant was closed, so there was no sommelier on the floor. This person comes in the hotel restaurant and orders the $32 pasta special for his wife and a burger ($28) for himself. Then he asked for the Jean-Georges wine list—it’s not advertised but you can ask for it. Then he orders a bottle of 2005 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti La Tâche—one of the most expensive Pinot Noirs in the world—probably $2,000 a bottle back then. I had no idea what a DRC wine was at the time. I went to my manager and told her that I’d confirmed the order, and that the guest wanted it decanted. I didn’t know how to do that. She said you definitely need to study more. That gave me the impetus to start taking wine classes in my off-hours. The worst part of it, though, was that the guest wanted us to leave the bottle chilling on ice. A La Tâche on ice! Can you believe that? Biggest lesson you’re taught is to always say yes to the guest.”

The rich and famous must have paraded through the doors there.
“It’s amazing how many business and movie deals went down in that restaurant. Obviously, since it was the Trump Hotel, I ran into Donald Trump a few times. And there were foreign dignitaries, including former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. The only reason I knew who it was, was because one of my managers at the time was from Vancouver and recognized him as soon as he came through the door. I can’t tell you what was discussed at the table that night, other than the fact that there was a lot of talk about golfing in South Africa. He was a good guy and very respectful. I was really impressed by him and his entourage.”

Your best tip?
“It was a midweek lunch in JG. Four gentlemen from Wall Street came in and ordered several bottles of Château Lynch-Bages, a fifth-growth Bordeaux, along with the three-course prix fixe. Then for a finishing note they went with a 1949 bottle of Château d’Yquem (the world’s most famous dessert wine). I think the tip was around $1,000.

“But that wasn’t the most memorable wine experience. Jean-Georges has a private dining room on one of the upper floors of the Trump Hotel. The owner of Lynch-Bages was in town and he was to attend a dinner featuring several back vintages of his wine, hosted by the Le Commanderie de Bordeaux, an exclusive wine group. Management asked me to work the dinner—maybe because I had just passed my Certified Sommelier exam. There were three cases of Lynch-Bages, the oldest dating back to the 1950s. I must’ve gotten at least 140 Bordeaux glasses polished and ready in two hours. I think the dinner lasted six to seven hours, because after each toast they’d break into the French drinking song, Lève ton Verre!”

You passed your Certified Sommelier exam, but in Toronto?
“All the New York exams and everything on the East Coast were already booked up in 2013. The Somm movie had just come out and there was a real buzz out there about becoming a sommelier. Luckily, I landed a spot to take it in Toronto. I used it as a chance to take a vacation, but also to explore Toronto, where I hadn’t been to since 2003. I passed the exam, and got to meet all three Canadian Master Sommeliers at the time in the process: John Szabo, Jennifer Huether and Bruce Wallner.

“I returned to New York, but was starting to realize I might not want to be a captain anymore.”

You had moved on to another famous NYC restaurant, Maialino, when you met one of Ontario’s most famous winemakers, Thomas Bachelder.
“I was working as a floor sommelier when Thomas and his wife Mary came in for lunch one day. They were meeting with a prospective wine agent in New York. I told him that my wife Cathy was from Welland, and that Niagara was an amazing area, and I wondered what its winemaking potential might be. And he said, ‘Do you want to try some? I have some right here.’ I hadn’t really tasted Ontario wine since 2003—and that bottle wasn’t very good. Thomas had just left Le Clos Jordanne and was doing his own label. So I tasted and said, ‘This is Pinot Noir from Niagara? Holy crap!’ And he said, ‘If you ever end up here, please come visit.’

“Two years later, I’m up in Canada again and meet with Thomas, and he’s touring me through Niagara and introducing me to all these different vineyards. I tasted the 2015/2016 vintages of his Chardonnay and was asking him all these questions about his winemaking methods, and he says, ‘I’m not doing much of anything—just leaving it. This is Niagara Chardonnay.’ And I’m thinking, ‘This is Niagara Chardonnay?! I’m moving up here!’

“Thomas helped seal the deal for me to come to Canada all those years ago. And I’ve never really got a chance to thank him—to tell him that a key reason I moved up here was because of Batchelder Chardonnay.”

So that was the impetus to come north?
“For a long time my wife had wanted to be close to family. We actually debated between moving to Seattle to be close to my folks or Hamilton to be near hers. Canada won out. I liked that it was more laid back. I was a bit worried about my career opportunities, though, and talked to Maialino’s head sommelier Jeff Kellogg about it. He said, ‘To be honest, the thing about Manhattan is that you’re one in a million Sommelier fish here, but you might be a bigger fish in a smaller market there. And he’d seen that successfully work for other sommeliers who worked under him, going to places like Nashville or in Boulder.”

 You’ve worked at some great restaurants—Backhouse in Niagara-on-the-Lake (now rebranded) and Oliver’s in Oakville—but got your start at Quatrefoil in Dundas.
“I appreciate Quatrefoil’s owners Fraser Macfarlane and Georgina Mitropoulos so much for giving me a chance to work there. And the sommelier at the time was José Luis Fernández (named Ontario’s Best Sommelier in 2019). He knew me from New York City and was also at my Certified Sommelier exam. Jose helped introduced me to the local somm community.”

What brought you to Victoria’s?
“I wanted the opportunity to start my own wine program from scratch and work with an up-and-coming restaurant. In July last year the opportunity came up. Unfortunately, we’ve been in a seesaw, where every time I try to build the wine list we get shut down again. But I really look forward to seeing what Victoria’s potential has to offer the next few months and years. Everyone should definitely check out the Hamilton food scene. It’s really on its way up.”

So how are you going to shape the wine list there?
“It’s a steak and seafood house, so there’s a certain expectation to have the classics, like California and Bordeaux. I find steakhouses up here also have a lot of Italian wines, and I have a lot of experience there. As we expand from that, I want to introduce other regions. I’m a huge fan of Northern Rhone Syrah—it’s great with steak. Maybe some Cab Franc from the Loire Valley, and some lighter reds for the patio, like classic Beaujolais. So many other regions too. And I would certainly need to highlight some great Ontario wines.”

And you’re still pursuing your Advanced Sommelier degree.
“After my second attempt, in 2019, I felt like I needed to take a mental break. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Covid has shut things down, but I’m hoping by December they will open up some spots so I can reapply.”

What do you miss most about New York City?
“One thing about it was that you learn to understand how mature wine should taste. There’s a great wine culture that is forming here in Ontario, but a lot of people don’t drink vintage wines. So it’s always sad when someone rejects a wine—10, 20 or 30 years old—but you know that it’s fine.

“But that’s why it’s important to have a sommelier on the floor who understands how each restaurant cellar works and what kind of wines are in there so that you can explain them to the guests and help them appreciate the wine for what it is.”

 Now that you’ve gotten to appreciate what this province has to offer, how do you respond when people say Ontario wines are too expensive for their quality?
“I feel like it’s going to take a generation to change people’s minds, one table at a time. You are drinking something of worth here, terroir-driven wines with a sense of place. If you are into California wines and Italian Pinot Grigios, by all means enjoy them. But if you’re looking for something a little more than that, a wine with a soul, then definitely drink Niagara wines. And remember—this is an American telling you this. I love Canadians, but they do not promote their wines like the U.S. does. If you promoted your wines like you do hockey, oh my Lord, you’d make a killing.”