Du Jour: Elton Hyndman, Nino’s

By the time he moved to Baton Rouge, Elton Hyndman had worked in restaurants in his native Canada, Madison, Wis., Australia, Indonesia, New Mexico and Seattle. Now, at the ripe old age of 34, the culinary veteran and his wife, Randee, 30, are proprietors of Nino’s, the small Italian restaurant on Bluebonnet Boulevard. They purchased the eatery last May, converting what Hyndman calls a throwback, red-sauce-centric menu into one with simpler, cleaner interpretations of Italian food. Hyndman’s kitchen career began at age 11, when he says he fibbed about his age to start washing dishes a year earlier than Canada’s permissible age of 12. Over the years of steady work, restaurants became his go-to job. While in college at the University of Wisconsin, he worked his way up the prep line, and it finally dawned on him that cooking school was more his speed. Armed with a culinary arts degree, he began traveling and cheffing, working in both holes-in-the-wall and at established eateries. Click here to find out how Elton went from prep cook to Baton Rouge chef here in this week’s Du Jour.To read previous Du Jour features on local chefs and other culinary experts, click here.