in Chatsworth, Grey Highlands, Southgate, West Grey
March 31, 2025
BY JOHN BUTLER — For the past few years, world-famous chef Roger Mooking has transformed a twelve acre patch of forested land west of Berkeley in Chatsworth Township into an oasis for those looking to celebrate community in woods and meadows. His facility, called Rocklands Market, is one of the latest in a string of dreams the Edmonton native has brought to life.
Located at 580364 Sideroad 60 in Berkeley, its website is at rocklandsmarket.com.
Rocklands Market is a set of winding trails connecting clearings where clients can gather to cook celebratory meals and hold events for groups large and small. There’s nary a straight line on the property until guests encounter the Black House — a guest-oriented building with straight, almost severe lines that belie the opportunity for warmth inside. Its central feature is the Grand Entertainment Room, with a sloped high ceiling and ample windows — a gathering space for small or large parties with a long harvest table in the adjacent Cathedral Dining Room. The focal point is a well equipped kitchen where guests can prepare their own feasts, and a Blue Pantry Room where mismatched but interesting scavenged serviceware can be rented by dining parties, or by parties wishing interesting film props — a more than incidental feature given Roger Mooking’s own forays into music and film as well as chefdom. He provides filming sites and amenities at Rocklands Market for those who want to make their own films, and he can provide a full range of film production and recording services for those who don’t want to go it alone.
For three summers the site has also hosted markets on Sundays at which prepared foods, hot foods, wellness products and the creations of local artists and artisans are for sale. Each event has drawn upwards of a hundred visitors each time.
Why and how did an urban-based chef with a string of successful restaurants and TV cooking series find his way to Berkeley? Roger says it started with the twin dreams of living in a less frenetic environment than the city, and creating a rural space where guests can pursue their own creativity, be it through retreats, 'live fire' cooking and dining, filming, recording or just bathing in woodland spirits. He drew a semi-circle on a map showing all areas within a two hour drive from Toronto (the limit for possible day trippers) and started searching. He says he “stumbled upon” the ideal spot in Berkeley — affordable with a mixed forest, and capable of adaptation to become what he wanted to create. It was only after buying the property that he and his family fell in love with the whole area’s small communities that have transformed the neighbourliness of their past into the friendliness of today. He was hooked on Grey County.
And Grey County is well on its way to being hooked on Roger Mooking. On October 10 of last year, Grey County announced the launch of its Gather Campaign with Roger as Grey County's first Culinary Ambassador. Its website is at www.GatherInGrey.ca. The campaign, an economic development initiative that showcases the region’s rich culinary heritage and vibrant agricultural community, has at its core a series of fourteen videos produced by Roger that feature Grey County producers, vendors, and food operators highlighting the county’s diverse food and agriculture. Roger would like to add to the original set of videos in future. “The talent and achievement in Grey County is enormous and deserves to be fully chronicled,” he says.
So far, this is the tale of a man searching for a space where he and his family could settle down — a place to share with others. But beneath this is the tale of a man whose life has been almost nomadic in his desire to explore and master new things.
He was born in the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. Roger’s family moved to Edmonton when he was a child. His family had a history in the food industry in the Caribbean, running a grocery store, a bakery and a restaurant. With both Black and Chinese ancestry, Roger learned early the value of diversity in terms of cuisine, culture and community. Roger studied culinary arts at Toronto’s George Brown College and trained under Japanese, Chinese, French and Swiss-German chefs. He went on to become Executive Chef and part owner of Kultura Social Dining and Nyood Restaurants in Toronto before his current award-winning Twist by Roger Mooking restaurant at Toronto Pearson Airport, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. His culinary excellence garnered him a number of awards, including a Gourmand World Cookbook Award.
But cooking wasn’t enough for him. His culinary expertise, self-taught media skills and natural affability led him to roles in a number of cooking shows. He hosted the grilling and barbecue show Man Fire Food on Warner / Discovery Networks and Greatest of America on Travel Channel. He also hosted and co-created the television series Everyday Exotic, and co-hosted Heat Seekers on the Food Network. Roger also hosted Man’s Greatest Food — a culinary odyssey around the USA. And he carries on that dimension of his career, but with a local twist. He has launched a new show on Amazon Prime — Breaking Bread with Roger Mooking — in which he holds conversations at Rocklands Market with celebrities from the worlds of politics, the arts and community development while cooking with them their time-honoured family recipes.
Not content to limit his interest to one country, Roger has played a role in service to others on a global scale. In 2011, he partnered with World Vision Canada and travelled to Cambodia to exchange ideas about child nutrition. In 2012, Roger traveled to Bangladesh to visit nutrition-related programming run by Save the Children and to meet with community groups, medical clinics and local families to explore ways to create sustainable health and nutrition programs so successful concepts can be applied worldwide. He continued to work with Save the Children and their programming and has traveled to Peru and worked with the organization here in Canada. Roger is also committed to the Toronto-based charity Second Harvest, co-hosting its annual charity Toronto Taste that provides rescued food to families in need.
His pursuit of new creative vistas led him at an early age to the world of music too. In the early 1990s he was a member of the Edmonton-based hip hop band The Maximum Definitive which was nominated for a Juno award. He was later, a member of the soul and hip hop band Bass is Base, a group that won a Juno Award and several Canadian Music Video Awards. Roger has the unique distinction of having won a Juno Award in one year, while also catering the June Awards banquet in another year. He has also pursued a solo musical career and in 2023 he released his sixth solo album SoundBites. An outgrowth of that album was his book Curious Sounds: A Dialogue in Three Movements, co-authored with fellow Black artist Francesca Ekwuyasi, in which the artists' conversations focus on creativity, Blackness, family, grief and more.
Celebration of heritage has also been a key element in Roger’s life. He was a key figure in The City of Toronto’s Awakenings (the winner of the 2022 Award of Excellence from the American Association for State and Local History), a series of art projects created within the Toronto History Museum by black and indigenous artists operating under principles of anti-oppression, anti-colonialism, and anti-racism.
When he isn’t pursuing these varied creative threads, Roger is happy showing off the assets of Rocklands Market to visitors. In one glade he shows the Butterfly Grill, which he describes as a “spectacularly massive cooking surface.” It’s made from a salvaged oil furnace transformed into an 10’ x 8’ grill with pull out grill grates, air vents, wood loading drawers and work shelves. In yet another clearing he points to its Cyberpunk Smoker for smoking brisket, ribs, sausages, chicken, turkey and vegetables. He is also glad to show visitors the site’s Hog and Maple Pit, designed to cook whole hogs and boil maple syrup. He is equally proud of his Campfire Area where granite and limestone blocks provide fireside seating and stone steps lead to a raised VIP area.
Throughout these trail-connected glades, and in the Black House too, Roger has given precedence to reclaimed and repurposed materials — metal, stone, wood, ceramics — leaving the visitor with a comforting sense of the co-existence of past and present — just the mix of then and now that Roger aims for.
Roger recognizes that the novelty of what Rocklands Market has to offer might be new territory to many people. “If you have an idea for a celebration, a community gathering or a feast large or small, let me know about it and I can help design ways Rocklands Market can make it happen for you,” he says. Inquiries for bookings can reach out to (519) 870-0996 or at general@rocklandsmarket.com.
What ties all this together for Roger? “Food feeds the body, music feeds the soul,” he says. And he’s confident in his own role in the world around him: “I create experiences with food, music and art.”
Roger’s created and creative experiences are available in South Grey through Rocklands Market and through Roger’s many other contributions to the vibrancy of Grey County. You should get to know him.
At South Grey News, we endeavour to bring you truthful and factual, up-to-date local community news in a quick and easy-to-digest format that’s free of political bias. We believe this service is more important today than ever before, as social media has given rise to misinformation, largely unchecked by big corporations who put profits ahead of their responsibilities.
South Grey News does not have the resources of a big corporation. We are a small, locally owned-and-operated organization. Research, analysis and physical attendance at public meetings and community events requires considerable effort. But contributions from readers and advertisers, however big or small, go a long way to helping us deliver positive, open and honest journalism for this community.
Please consider supporting South Grey News with a donation in lieu of a subscription fee and let us know that our efforts are appreciated. Thank you.
.jpg?updated=1625080483)
