By Adam Dickson

From lobster bisque to the perfect cheeseburger to chocolate lava cakes, 32-year-old Canadian chef Matty Matheson has done it all. The king of Munchies averages millions of views on each of his YouTube videos and after watching one you’ll know why.

Drenched in tattoos and looking like the biggest hipster in Toronto, Matty Matheson is the loudest, most explosive character in cooking today. The nonchalant, comical chef is the host of Dead Set on Life, a show about, in his own words “it’s about food, it’s about fucking ripping around in cars and motorcycles. It’s just about fucking smashing stuff.” The Vice programme is now on its third series and has amassed a huge fan base, not only for food lovers but also lovers of Matty and his unconventional take on what it means to be a chef.

In his early days he’s known as a bit of a party animal. When I say a bit I’m underselling it, because at age 29 he suffered a heart attack which almost killed him, thus pushing him to leave his partying days behind him. In an interview with Office Magazine he said, “I was lying, I was stealing, I was manipulating, I was fucking taking steaks and giving them to drug dealers for fucking coke or whatever, and I was just doing a lot of drugs,” he continued. “For a few years, I was [doing] two-three grams a day.  It was a lot of drugs, plus everything else.”

Throughout his 20s, between his addiction and wild lifestyle, he still managed to work on his cooking career in various French restaurants. He worked there until 2010 when Parts & Labour opened in Parkdale and he became the executive chef where he has remained since.

Fast forward to 2018 and between working on his TV show and working on the Munchies section on Vice’s YouTube channel, he has managed to find time to create his own cookbook. The cookbook features a huge number of his own recipes which he has created throughout his life and has consistently maintained a steady number of fans to both his online How To’s and his programme.

Normally I would avoid stereotypes, but the nice guy Canadian really holds true in Matty’s case, he is an incredibly charismatic, well mannered (despite almost always using profanities), all round good guy that you definitely want to have a dinner party with. Typically cooking shows can be a bit bland and run of the mill but Matty is contradicting the norms of a what a cooking show is and giving it a broader appeal.