From Fine Dining to the Butcher Counter

Before he was cutting custom orders in Willoughby, Kai spent more than ten years in Vancouver's restaurant scene, working his way up to Executive Chef in some of the city's top hotels and dining rooms. He was even named runner-up for Best Chef in Vancouver, a recognition that speaks to the kind of precision and care he brings to every dish. But somewhere along the way, the white tablecloths started to feel like a different kind of work than the one he wanted to do.

The Butcher Langley was born out of that shift. It's a shop built on whole animal butchery, sustainable sourcing, and a genuine connection to local farmers, the kind of place where the person cutting your meat actually knows where it came from. For Kai, that's not a marketing angle. It's the whole point.

"Local sourcing isn't a trend I cook by, it's the way I've always done it." - Kai says when talking about his approach.

That philosophy is exactly why he felt like the right person to anchor this project: someone whose credibility doesn't come from a script, but from a decade of actually doing the work.

Why Napoleon

Kai has cooked on a lot of equipment over the years, professional kitchens and backyard setups alike, and it doesn't take him long to tell the difference between a grill that's built for marketing photos and one that's built to perform.

Two things stand out to him on the Napoleon: how fast it gets scorching hot, and how well it holds that heat once it's there. No drifting, no babysitting the dial. Just a consistent sear on a ribeye and a clean, even cook the whole way through.

That consistency is what makes the grill more versatile than people expect. Over the course of the series, Kai used it to sear and braise a pork shoulder low and slow, deep-fry potatoes in beef tallow in a pot set right on the grates, and still turn out a perfectly seared steak in the same backyard session. It's less a grill than a full outdoor kitchen, which is exactly the point.

There's also something to be said for the fact that Napoleon has been doing this in Canada since 1976. It's a brand that's spent five decades figuring out how to build equipment for the way Canadians actually grill: through unpredictable weather, long summer evenings, and backyards that double as the gathering spot for everyone you know. Trail Appliances turned fifty just last year too, which made the partnership feel less like a brand collaboration and more like two homegrown companies with a shared instinct for getting things right.

A Menu Built for a Canadian Backyard

Working with a Napoleon grill at the Trail Appliances Cloverdale showroom, Kai built a menu that leans into classic Canadian flavours without playing it safe.

1. A beef burger gets the full treatment: thick-cut bacon, grilled onions, and a liberal drizzle of maple syrup that adds just enough sweetness to cut through the richness. Kai's take is unapologetic about it too, joking that he's not sure burgers need mayo anymore when maple syrup does the job better.
   

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2. A grilled ribeye gets nothing more than a generous, fearless salt and a hot grill, finished with a mushroom and onion sauté and a warm salad on the side.

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3. And in a nod to one of the country's most iconic comfort foods, a boned-out pork shoulder gets charred then braised right on the grill, pulled, and piled over crispy Fraser Valley potatoes fried in beef tallow for a BBQ take on poutine, finished with a touch of pulled pork gravy and green onions.

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None of it is complicated for the sake of being complicated. As Kai puts it, a lot of the time good cooking just comes down to good meat, good seasoning, and good people. It's food that's meant to be eaten standing around a grill with a drink in hand, which is really the whole idea behind backyard cooking in the first place.

Find Your Own Napoleon Grill

If watching Kai work has you thinking about your own backyard setup, Trail Appliances carries the full Napoleon lineup, from accessible everyday grills to premium models built for the serious outdoor cook. Visit the Outdoor Living section at our Cloverdale showroom to see them in person, or explore the collection online to find the grill that fits the way you actually want to spend your summer.