Our Team

Stephen Beckta is proprietor of Play, and its sister restaurant, Beckta dining & wine, one of Ottawa’s premier fine dining restaurants. After graduating with honours from Algonquin College’s Sommelier program, Stephen departed Ottawa to hone his skills in New York City for four years with the top players in the restaurant industry. Stephen started at Café Boulud working for the celebrated chef, Daniel Boulud, followed by two years with renowned restaurateur Danny Meyer at Eleven Madison Park before returning to his native city. Stephen has been named Top Independent Restaurateur in Ontario by the Ontario Hostelry Institute (2007), won the Bill Joe Restaurateur of the Year Award by the Ontario Restaurant Association in 2011, nominated for the Ontario Premier’s Awards in Business twice (2006, 2010), named one of Ottawa’s Top 40 under 40 by the Ottawa Business Journal (2008) and Algonquin College’s Alumni of the year (2010). Stephen is proud to be the Chair of the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa where he is also an alumnus.

Clay Cardillo is the Managing Partner for Play, as well as for its sister restaurants gezellig and Beckta dining & wine. Clay completed the Algonquin Culinary Program in 1998 before becoming the Sous Chef for LeMetro in Ottawa. From there Clay worked in the kitchens of the NAC and The Keg,and was soon promoted within The Keg to open restaurants as Kitchen Manager. Here he began to find that while he got into the business to work with food and wine, he enjoyed working with the people in the restaurants as much as the product. Before long, Clay was recruited by SirCorp, then a small Canadian restaurant corporation, to be the opening Kitchen Manager and then General Manager for a number of restaurants throughout Southern Ontario. After 9 years and soon after the birth of his first child, Clay left SirCorp to become Business Development Manager at Cara, where he helped owners develop their people and restaurants. In 2012, Clay joined the Beckta family of restaurants of Beckta dining & wine, Play food & wine and gezellig, where he is happy to fulfill his passion for building business by driving hospitality.

Chef Shane Brown began his career with Beckta in 2012 as a saucier. In just 18 months he rose to the role of Sous Chef and then Chef at Beckta in 2017. In 2020 he joined the team at Gezellig and led the kitchen until November 2021 when he joined Play Food & Wine as head Chef.

Following high school, Shane attended Culinary school at Fanshawe College and then furthered his education in gastronomy at Le Cordon Bleu. His career began at Farbs Kitchen in 2009 under the tutelage of Chef Micheal Farber where by 2012 he earned the distinctive role of Sous Chef. Chef Shane’s cooking style is inspired by the ingredient’s he uses, preferring to adapt dishes using Canadian products, indigenous ingredients as well as using indigenous techniques. Hospitality and a spirit of ‘welcome’ is always at the forefront of what Chef Shane does and is ever present in the way he runs his kitchen. He wants to ensure that everyone joining us in our restaurants are enjoying themselves and have a memorable experience. When he’s not at Play, Chef Shane Brown is passing down his love of food to his three daughters. Every day they make crepes together and he loves teaching them proper techniques like knife work and how to make fresh pasta.

For 13 years, Pieter served and managed at Ottawa’s Courtyard Restaurant. Along the way, he fell in love with two things. The first was the rewarding experience of looking after people. The second was all things wine. Both of these passions led him to become a graduate of Algonquin’s College’s Sommelier Program and earn a Level 3 Advanced Certificate in Wines and Spirits from the WSET. First joining Beckta as Service Manager in 2006, Pieter became our Sommelier in 2008. Since then, he’s crafted a diverse wine list, which promotes delicious Canadian and international wines from great producers who make wine with a sense of place. Outside of Beckta, Pieter continues to spread the word about wine through his teaching at Algonquin College and his articles in Diplomat magazine.

Sous Chef Kyle Wilson has been with Play food & wine for three years. Having graduated from George Brown College in 2014 in Culinary Skills Chef Training, Kyle has worked in notable establishments in Toronto, where he fostered his passion for farm-to-table. Kyle appreciates the importance of the relationships we have to food, the relationships with its growers and how food is grown. A lover of a variety of cuisines from Indian to Italian, he loves that at Play, the menu isn’t focused on a specific cuisine but rather on how to best express the ingredients we work with from our farmers and suppliers. Looking ahead, Kyle would like to teach culinary students and some day open his own restaurant where he can cook and serve his guests in order to be fully immersed in the hospitality experience. When he’s not at Play you can find Kyle playing guitar, writing music, cycling or weightlifting.

Ryan Kelly, an Ontario native, brings with him over fifteen years of hotel and restaurant experience. He followed his dreams after high school graduation and moved to Whistler, British Columbia where he found fulfillment in the mountains and the outdoors. It was in Whistler that Ryan immersed himself in the world of hospitality, and quickly rose to the top of the highly competitive world of 5-star hotel and restaurant management.After many years in Whistler, Ryan decided to return home and found himself in Ottawa, dabbling in a real estate career. It was in Ontario that he met and married the love of his life, Kristie, and with her encouragement and support, returned to his passion in the restaurant sector where he has dedicated himself to the pursuit of excellence in food, wine and mixology.