Toronto is home to no short number of larger-than-life culinary personalities from Matty Matheson to Susur Lee, but it’s the ones you may not have heard of before who are quietly, but powerfully, shaping the culinary landscape from the kitchen.
Mona Sleiman is one of those chefs.
Though Mona, the former executive chef at Fet Zun, had already been grinding it out at kitchens across the city for a few years prior to her time working, alongside founder Anthony Rose, at a Mexican-inspired pop-up, she considers that time a pivotal moment in her culinary career.
“I remember there being freezing cold days while we had to keep our heads down and work through the discomfort of being cold,” she tells me. “There was one day he stopped, looked at me and said ‘this is your moment. Do you want to be a line cook or a chef?’ I answered ‘I want to be a chef.'”
The entire trajectory of her career, she says, changed from that moment on.
As it happens, her career started off far from any kitchen, let alone one led by one of Toronto’s most notable restaurateurs.
Born in Kuwait to a Palestinian father and Bahraini mother, Mona tells me that she grew up very different from everyone around her — or, felt that way, at least.
“I was 4 years old when we immigrated to Canada,” she says. “My parents always kept food very traditional at home and for my lunches. Our gatherings were always based around what time we were eating, what we were eating and who was responsible for bringing what to my moms.”
That much, at least, hasn’t changed, as she says that elaborate eight-course meals continue to be the standard for family gettogethers at her mom’s house, though it’s her dad who’s famous for his Ful Mudammas.
“I grew up very traditional,” she says. “The expectation was to graduate from high school, go to university, get a stable job, be loyal to your position for your whole career, find a husband, get married, move out from your parents home and of course, start a family,” so that’s the course she started on.
A few years later, though, working as a corporate operations manager in a job Mona describes as “good, safe and comfortable,” she realized that stability and tradition don’t necessarily equate to happiness.
“I had a moment where I woke up one day and asked myself ‘are you happy?’ and the answer was no,” she tells me.
The first pivotal moment in her career — the decision to start.
After waffling between pursuing photography (which, ultimately, proved “too rigid” an industry) and cooking. Cooking, it should come as no surprise, won out.
Mona started at the very bottom, she tells me, washing dishes, splitting 80 pounds of chicken wings, spending hours punching potatoes for fries, spending her days off working unpaid in kitchens to learn everything she possibly could, heading to George Brown to study and landing positions in kitchens across the city.
Eventually, she landed a gig as a line cook under Jen Bubleit and Anthony Rose at Big Crow which later became Grand Elvis and then on to the location of “some of [her] biggest learning moments,” Gordy Smiles.
It helps, of course, to have friends in high places, and she found a particularly enthusiastic cheerleader in Anthony Rose, who Mona describes as her greatest mentor.
While Rose, the mind behind Annex stalwart Fat Pasha and bygone gems like Rose and Sons and Big Crow, deservingly gets his fair share of recognition on the Toronto culinary scene, he was quick to turn the spotlight on Mona when Fet Zun closed last December.
“Fet Zun would not could not be the success it most certainly was without [Mona,]” Rose writes in an Instagram post on Fet Zun’s closing day. “She was the guiding force of the energy and the mood and the food and the atmosphere and everything everywhere always.”
It was Fet Zun, ultimately, that gave Mona the chance to stand in her hard-earned limelight, as, she tells me, it was there that Rose encouraged her to create dishes that spoke to her personal history, tastes and style.
“Anthony pushed me to dig deep into my heritage and what I grew up with,” she tells me.
“I have a distinct memory very earlu into my Fet Zun days suggesting something like mussels that one of the cooks wanted to make. Anthony looked at me and said ‘I want to eat what you eat; imagine you are taking me to your parents’ house for dinner.'”
Fet Zun, then, really became an ode to Mona’s Middle Eastern heritage, and suffice it to say, it really, really worked.
Over the nearly five years that Fet Zun was in business on Dupont, Mona tells me of a number of experiences that’ll stick with her long after the doors of the restaurant have closed, from their Lamb Bah Bah Que event where Fet Zun’s back patio transformed into an outdoor kitchen to regular brunch services.
The staff at the restaurant, she adds, made a particular mark.
“The team at Fet Zun was really special,” she tells me. “We were a family that didn’t make sense but somehow made perfect sense at the same time.”
The restaurant ultimately closed in December of 2024 to pare down on ventures, as Anthony Rose told blogTO in an earlier interview and, while there are no hard feelings, Mona tells me that the closure brought with it a healthy amount of heartbreak.
“Fet Zun runs in my blood, it made my heart beat for so many years of my life,” she says. “I put a lot of love and memories of family gatherings on that menu. There was a story behind every dish there.”
“As one can imagine hearing that this huge part of my life, this space that I gave my all was closing was absolutely devastating.”
Toronto photographer, Andrew Tso, documents the last day at Fet Zun in his upcoming short film, Home Cooked. In it, Mona candidly shares that the closure “feels like a failure.”
The future of Mona’s career, I posit, will prove that it was anything but, though. Rather, Fet Zun’s closure poses an opportunity for Mona to spread her wings and, in so doing, further work her magic on Toronto’s culinary scene.
For now, she’s building Quench Catering, a new culinary extension to her partner Jenn’s business, Quench Bar, which is where you’ll be able to get a taste of Mona’s work for the time being.
“Quench Catering is going to be my platform where I can continue to share the food I am passionate about,” she tells me. “We are a full service mobile catering company offering various dining options including seated meals, grazing tables, passed canape service, luxury offerings inclusive of on-site oyster shucking, caviar pairings and ceviche raw bars.”
When it comes to re-entering the restaurant world — perhaps with a place of her own — Mona says “never say never!”
“I just want to master the art of catering before I consider any potential future business ventures!”
