CAMBRIDGE — Jonathan Gushue, the celebrated chef who drew the well-heeled to pricey meals at Langdon Hall, is still cooking for people in Waterloo Region — but you no longer need a dinner jacket or a reservation.

Since 2013, he's been quietly volunteering in the kitchen at The Bridges, the Cambridge shelter that serves the homeless and others in need for a free meal.

"There was a part of me that wanted to help people who really needed it, as opposed to people who could really afford it," he said. "It just seemed like it was time. It was something inside me that I wanted to do."

Gushue started helping at the shelter in the summer of 2013 and, at first, most people there had no idea who he was. It was in the middle of a difficult year, following his high-profile disappearance and turmoil in his personal life.

"He just sort of plunked himself on our doorstep one day," said Gillian Cornell, fundraising and volunteer manager at the shelter. "When I interviewed him, he told me he was a chef. I was like 'Oh, OK.' It wasn't until later that I realized who he was."

The Newfoundland-born chef volunteers every two weeks in the shelter's kitchen, where he works alongside the homeless, offenders doing community service, and high school kids earning volunteer hours.

The meals are simple — often beef or chicken with a starch and vegetables, and all of it donated from local grocers, restaurants and other businesses. Gushue, who assists the kitchen's two paid cooks, helps a crew of volunteers prepare food for about 90 people a night.

It's a far cry from his days as executive chef at Langdon Hall, the Relais & Châteaux-designated luxury hotel and spa in Cambridge where diners drop hundreds for meals of foie gras and braised venison. Gushue oversaw one of the country's most sophisticated dining establishments there, and won international accolades for his inventive use of food at the highest of standards.

Gushue quit Langdon Hall in the fall of 2013 and started working as a consultant to Queen Margherita Pizza, a wood-fired pizza chain in Toronto. Today, he's still living in Cambridge, working as a consultant and making plans for a new restaurant of his own, either in Waterloo Region or the Stratford area.

He'd like to grow that restaurant into distribution business that focuses on local food artisans and farmers, and helps them get their products to a wider audience.

But for now, Gushue couldn't be happier helping out at The Bridges.

"I'd never been in an environment like that before. It was good to not be in charge, and it was good to go in there and not have people know who I was," he said.

"It allowed me to just get back to basics. I just go in and do whatever they need, whatever they need help with. It's more fulfilling that way."

The non-profit agency, which also runs a drop-in centre, temporary housing, addictions counselling, refugee support and other services, is thrilled to have such a talented chef on hand to help them find new ways to prepare the donated food they have to work with.

"He taught us there's five ways to make gravy. We just thought there were two," said Cornell, who adds the shelter is always looking for more volunteers.

"But there's absolutely no ego. He's such a humble, down-to-earth, lovely guy. He's so good as a chef, but he's just a regular human being."

It's been a mutually beneficial relationship, too. Gushue said it's been great to help at a place where he doesn't have to be the boss, and where the work you're doing benefits the community so much.

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Gushue said his public disappearance at the start of 2013, which lasted about 10 days until police tracked him to another province, had nothing to do with the demands of his job at Langdon Hall.

Like some of the people who rely on The Bridges, the married father of three had battled alcoholism in the past and spent stints in rehab.

"I guess you could say it was an internal problem that needed to be dealt with. It was a personal issue that I was ignoring, and hoping it would go away," he said. "I've been dealing with it very successfully over the past few years."

Part of that success is owed to his volunteerism, he said. In cooking at The Bridges, the star chef has found a kitchen that's as therapeutic as it is fun.

"When you help others, in turn, you help yourself. It takes you out of yourself, and your own daily stresses of the daily grind," he said.

"It can make you grateful for what you do have, instead of lapsing into self-pity. I'm learning to deal with life, on life's terms."

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