Beckta.com Website Review

Stephen Beckta is proprietor of Beckta, and its sister restaurants, Play food & wine and gezellig. After graduating with honours from Algonquin College’s Sommelier program, Stephen departed Ottawa to hone his skills in New York City for four years with the top players in the restaurant industry. Stephen started at Café Boulud working for the celebrated chef, Daniel Boulud, followed by two years with renowned restaurateur Danny Meyer at Eleven Madison Park before returning to his native city. Stephen has been named Top Independent Restaurateur in Ontario by the Ontario Hostelry Institute (2007), won the National Terroir Outstanding Service Professional Award (2013), won the Bill Joe Restaurateur of the Year Award in Ottawa by ORHMA (2011), nominated for the Ontario Premier’s Awards in Business twice (2006, 2010), named one of Ottawa Life Magazine’s Top 50 people twice (2003, 2010) one of Ottawa’s Top 40 under 40 by the Ottawa Business Journal (2008) and Algonquin College’s Alumni of the year (2010). Stephen is proud to be the Chair of the Boys and Gi*ls Club of Clay Cardillo is the Managing Partner for Beckta, as well as for its sister restaurants Play food & wine and gezellig. Clay completed the Algonquin Culinary Program in 1998 before becoming the Sous Chef for LeMetro in Ottawa. From there Clay worked in the kitchens of the NAC and The Keg,and was soon promoted within The Keg to open restaurants as Kitchen Manager. Here he began to find that while he got into the business to work with food and wine, he enjoyed working with the people in the restaurants as much as the product. Before long, Clay was recruited by SirCorp, then a small Canadian restaurant corporation, to be the opening Kitchen Manager and then General Manager for a number of restaurants throughout Southern Ontario. After 9 years and soon after the birth of his first child, Clay left SirCorp to become Business Development Manager at Cara, where he helped owners develop their people and restaurants. In 2012, Clay joined the Beckta