Building institutions, not just restaurants, that shape our culinary culture
Age: 35
Job Title: Owner of The Butternut Tree and Co-owner of The Marc
Scott Downey had no idea what he was in for the first time he set foot in a restaurant kitchen as a teenager. He was a broke business student when his sister asked him to cover a dishwashing shift at her restaurant. But when a line cook didn’t show up, Downey was thrown straight into the dinner rush. He went home sore, exhausted and missing the tip of his thumb after a knife mishap. What he gained, though, was a newfound passion.
“I immediately connected to the fast pace of working in a kitchen, and the team effort of everyone working together toward one unified goal,” says Downey, who moved his way up to shift leader in just over a year on the job.
Downey was soon approached by Earls with an offer to send him to a local culinary school for training with the goal of becoming head chef at a new location after a couple of years with the franchise. He accepted and was once again captivated by the experience of working in a tightly knit team, where the kitchen ran like a well-oiled machine. But Downey didn’t want to lock himself into a long-term contract when he felt like he still had so much to learn. He returned to school, this time to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, leading him to work at Restaurant Daniel, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the Big Apple.
It was during his time at Daniel that Downey was invited to stage at Noma in Copenhagen. The internship gave him insight into what was then considered the best restaurant in the world, celebrated for its innovation and hyper-local approach to fine dining — a philosophy he’d eventually bring to Edmonton’s The Butternut Tree.
Since opening in 2017, the fine-dining restaurant has earned a reputation as one of the city’s premier restaurants, while also training a new generation of cooks and servers — many of whom have gone on to become chefs and managers themselves. “I never wanted it to be a restaurant that blew up, was successful for a couple years and then died off,” he says. “I wanted to be institutionalized in a way — something that was like a part of the city, a part of the community, and that was here for a long time. I think that’s why we’re still here today.”
Never one to sit still, in 2024, Downey and his wife, Jillian Fonteyne, purchased The Marc, one of Edmonton’s most beloved French-inspired bistros. Under their ownership, the restaurant has been refreshed with new energy while keeping the warm, classic feel that made it a local institution.
This article appears in the November/December 2025 issue of Edify
