Nick van Mele

Nick van Mele grew up in southern Ontario where trained as a chef before moving to Newfoundland in 2015 to pursue his culinary passions.

After working at several well-known restaurants in St. John’s, Nick found his dream job in 2017 as the first head chef at The Grounds Café, a then-new farm-to-table restaurant based in Murray’s Garden Centre & Century Farm in Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s. Nick has since become a key figure in establishing the café as a destination for enjoying a varied menu of dishes made with excellent, locally sourced ingredients.  Nick’s dishes have been featured on TV and radio, in print, and now in his new book, The Grounds Café: Seasonal Dishes from Murray’s Century Farm.