The Vancouver food community reacted with surprise and sorrow after learning of the unexpected death of celebrated local chef, writer and radio host Nathan Fong this week.

“We are incredibly saddened to hear that our dear friend and incredible chef Nathan Fong is no longer with us,” the team at Fanny Bay Oysters shared in a Facebook post early Tuesday. “Nathan was special to so many people for being passionate and caring about food, travel, but most importantly, about people.”

A longtime member of the local culinary scene, Fong built a brand around his talents that included food stylist, chef, journalist, radio host and creator of the popular food site Fong on Food.

“I always marvelled at how Nathan could juggle so many things — endless travel, writing, shooting, entertaining friends — and seem so in charge of it all. He was the perfect host, an amazing cook and attentive friend,” Global News anchor Sophie Lui says. “Nathan was probably the first person who really introduced me to Vancouver’s restaurant scene — for which I am so thankful, as I now have an obsession with restaurants and food.

“If not for him, I would be sitting at home eating chips and soup from a can.”

The outpouring of messages from friends and colleagues reacting to the news carried a common theme, highlighting Fong’s passion for people, as well as food.

“I’ve never known anyone like Nathan for being able to connect with people, to make friends and keep friends,” writer and cookbook author Joanne Sasvari, said. “We travelled together a lot over the years, and no matter what corner of the world we were in, there was always someone he knew living there — moreover, it was always someone who’d be willing to drop everything at a moment’s notice to hang out with him.

“Amazing. We’ve all lost a very dear friend today.”

“Nathan was poised and gracious and good-humoured — always. Inside, he teemed with passion, energy, ideas and a lust for life,” Vancouver Sun restaurant critic Mia Stainsby says. “When he wasn’t travelling for work or pleasure, which was always, he loved nothing better than to cook for friends and connect.

“He had culinary friends everywhere in the world, many of them celebrity chefs. He connected them to Vancouver and relished this culinary synergy.”

In addition to his work in the kitchen, in print and on-air, Fong was an avid philanthropist, Stainsby says.

“He was an incredible force at fundraisers and devoted himself to Passions, an annual fundraiser which he founded in 2002, for Dr. Peter Aids Foundation; it became a gala event in the years to follow with the city’s top chefs donating their time.”

The annual event is how many people became acquainted with Fong.

“I first met Nathan when he asked me to be part of his Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation Passions Gala committee many years ago. He was so kind, so warm and so welcoming,” Sophia Cheng, a Vancouver-based PR and social-media consultant, recalls. “He opened his home for meetings. I was in awe of how he was able to mobilize chefs, other publicists and the whole community to share in his cause.

“Most fondly, his dinner parties were the best — he just loved to cook and cook for his loved ones. I remember the first time he invited me, and it was a potluck-style. I was so nervous to bring a dish because some of the other guests were chefs. I thought long and hard about what to make, but he was very encouraging. In the end, I made this cucumber appetizer with red pepper hearts. When I brought it over, he said it looked amazing and made sure to try one, put it out on the table, and said job well done. It meant a lot for a nervous me. That was Nathan, and I’ll miss him.”

Fong “adored his family,” including his husband, Michel Chicoine, and the couple’s Shiba Inu dog, Yuki, which Stainsby says kept a “catlike cool most of the time but totally lost it in sheer joy when Nathan or Michel walked in the door.”

Posting to Facebook last week, he let friends and family know of an incident he had at his home, saying it was, “a bit of an accident” that “could have gone serious but I’m OK.” He urged others to contact any single friends in self-isolation to make sure they were OK.

Fong was 61. The suspected cause of death is a heart attack.

aharris@postmedia.com

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