Family often forms the core of these mobile kitchen businesses.
What could be more chef-driven than a food truck? Whether parked in a permanent spot or rolling up to weddings and festivals, some of the Victoria area’s best food is served through a window.
“We can be elevated food, and it is not just greasy, deep-fried things,” says Vy Nguyen, co-owner of Hide N Seek food truck in East Sooke. “We work just as hard as brick-and-mortar restaurants.”
Like many traditional restaurants, Hide N Seek has an executive chef, Motoharu Nozawa, formerly of the award-winning House of Boateng. Nozawa and his wife, Minako, met Nguyen while working together at the Langford restaurant. They dreamed of opening their own place, but Nguyen championed the lower costs of a food truck. The decision was made when a House of Boateng customer offered to sell his, a refitted 1970s-era former delivery truck.
Two years ago, the trio launched Hide N Seek beside East Sooke Grocer & General Store, serving Asian comfort food with fine dining influences and locally sourced and foraged ingredients. The compact, 18-foot kitchen includes a three-burner gas cooker on a small rear porch. It’s used to prepare sous-vide meats, ramen broths, stir-fries, and sauces.
Their signature dish, Wiggly Jiggly, features fluffy rice topped with greens, six-hour-braised pork belly, a perfect poached egg, and a pineapple-pork stock reduction, finished with spicy pineapple salsa. Hide N Seek also has the only licensed food truck patio in the province, where customers can enjoy sake in a scenic, forested setting.
Reinventing Comfort Food
Dan Humphries, chef-owner of Grilled to the Mac, launched his food truck in 2013 with the motto: “Reinventing comfort food.” With 35 years of experience in the restaurant industry, he crafts gourmet comfort food in a custom-built 10 × 10 × 6 trailer, permanently parked at Sooke Oceanside Brewery. Near the door, there’s a photo of Jon Favreau from the 2014 comedy Chef, which tells the story of a culinary luminary who falls from grace and starts a family-run food truck.
Humphries’ love of cooking started young, by making Saturday breakfasts for his father. “He was my first satisfied customer,” he wrote in a blog post.
His menu elevates classics like grilled cheese and mac and cheese. The Mac Lorraine combines cavatappi pasta with rich Canadian cheddar sauce, sweet grilled onions, and local double-smoked Glenwood Meats side bacon. The Benedict Burger features a grilled Glenwood Meats chuck patty, hash browns, a free-run egg, shaved ham, and cheddar Hollandaise.
Humphries even makes his own ketchup and beer mustard, using award-winning Renfrew Red ale from the brewery. His customers travel from as far as Sidney, and he is seeking a commercial vendor for his sauces.
Women Leading the Way
More and more, food trucks are being led by young women entrepreneurs. Kirn Bawa, 31, and her mother, Narpinder, run The Rolling Tandoor as part of their Sizzling Tandoor restaurant chain. Eirini Sypsa, 26, co-owns the award-winning Greek n’ Go with her parents, Jerry and Martha.
Narpinder and her husband, Gurinder, opened Sizzling Tandoor in Victoria in 2010. In 2019, they expanded the business with The Rolling Tandoor food truck. Initially launched to provide students with a taste of home, it quickly grew to serve weddings, parties, and events. Their menu features a variety of curries, butter chicken poutine, and freshly fried samosas and pakoras.
Their keystone dish is a pillowy, slightly charred naan made in the truck’s heavy clay tandoor oven. It can get just as hot as a restaurant tandoor — about 300°C.
“In the summer, it’s awful,” Kirn says of the heat from the tandoor. “In the winter, we can’t get enough of it.”
Kirn opened Kinu last year, an upscale-casual Indian dining room at Uptown Mall.
“I wanted to provide people with flavours from all over India and a modern, contemporary twist,” she says. Some of Kinu’s dishes will be on The Rolling Tandoor menu this year.
A Greek Family Affair
The idea for Greek n’ Go began when Jerry Sypsa noticed two food trucks parked on Cook Street. Inspired, he purchased one and, in 2022, opened the first Greek n’ Go. The business grew into three signature blue-and-white food trucks.
The smiling woman pictured on the trucks is Jerry’s mother and the namesake of his daughter, Eirini. She inspired their menus and crafted the evil eye amulets that hang inside every truck to ward off misfortune.
Greek n’ Go has been voted Victoria’s best food truck twice and the entire family is involved in the business. Son Christo runs two The Mad Greek food trucks in Vancouver, while daughter Anna, who is studying nutrition in Cyprus, will return to Victoria this summer to help out. “Everything here, 90 percent of the food, is homemade,” says Eirini, who manages operations. While most ingredients are sourced locally, feta, olive oil, and oregano are imported from Greece.
Jerry and Martha handle prep and cooking in a commercial kitchen. Their hummus, a testament to their commitment to fresh ingredients, is slightly chunky, drizzled with olive oil, and served with warm pita bread dusted with oregano.
When asked about his culinary background, Jerry simply shrugs and grins. “Well, we’re Greeks.”
Cooking for the Soul
David Gittens made the switch from construction to cooking when he launched the Come and Get It! food truck. When he isn’t serving food at festivals and community events, he’s among a handful of mobile vendors parked behind the Royal BC Museum.
With a Trinidadian father and a mother who embraced Trinidad’s diverse culinary influences, Gittens learned how to cook traditional Trini food at an early age. In 2023, he launched his truck, serving “globally inspired comfort food for the soul.” His menu features Jamaican jerk, crispy patties, and Trinidadian pelau — a flavourful combination of chicken, pigeon peas, and cumin-spiced rice. His Trinidad Black Cake, made with ground prunes, raisins, rum, and cherry brandy, is another customer favourite.
A Love for Food Trucks
Victoria musicians Eden and Jeff Poynter, of the folk band West My Friend, are self-proclaimed food truck aficionados. When pandemic restrictions shut down restaurants, they turned to food trucks for their dining experiences. They hit 50 different vendors over 16 months.
“We went to one, and we were like, let’s go to all of them,” Jeff recalls over a meal from Come and Get It!.
“It’s impressive how many vegetarian options there are,” Eden adds. “And people are friendly and excited about sharing their food.”
That certainly applies to Gittens.
“I really, really love cooking,” he says — a sentiment that could serve as the motto for the many chefs who feed us from their food trucks.
As Featured In:
