Angus Murdoch McIntosh, 1953-2024

There aren't many people who could play all three roles in "a chef, a priest and a musician walk into a bar" joke, but Angus McIntosh could. That's because he spent long chunks of his life doing all three – occasionally at the same time.

A prolific raconteur eager to trump someone's good story with his own, McIntosh was as comfortable in a classroom as he was in a kitchen, on a golf course, playing the bass, holding a fishing rod, arguing theology or the Beatles place in rock history.

Angus Murdoch McIntosh, 70, died Thursday Aug. 1. He spent nearly the last 30 years cheffing in restaurants and working catering gigs in Canton and surrounding counties, capping a professional resume that featured stops in some of the nation's culinary hotspots.

A proudly self-taught chef, he served as a chef instructor, a working chef and an executive chef in a career that began in private city clubs in the mid-1980s. A few years later, he was executive chef of Café Margaux in Lake Charles, Louisiana, named the state's top French restaurant during his tenure. Then came stints at Lagniappe in Houston and Place Pigalle in Seattle, supplied regularly by the famed Pike Place Market.

McIntosh arrived in Canton in the fall of 1996 to become executive chef and general manager of the Canton Club. There he introduced cigar and wine dinners – including one built around the wines of Trimbach, an Alsatian producer from France – and met the woman who would become his wife, Sarah Howes.

In the late '90s, he was the executive chef of the Spread Eagle Tavern in Hanoverton, where he created special dinners for politicians of the day and themed diners around Robert Burns, Winston Churchill and C.S. Lewis – great thinkers all whom McIntosh admired and fondly quoted.

He founded Iris Restaurant in 2007, a neighborhood eatery that expressed his love for food, wine and music. He was a visionary and started the revitalization of the culinary scene in downtown Canton. His love for cooking and its culture endured, exemplified by a culinary library of some 400 books.

Through it all, the chef yearned to heed a calling to become an Anglican priest, to feed souls as much as bodies. He served associate priest at St. Christopher's Anglican Church in Wooster, Ohio from 2017-2023. A self-described "voracious reader," McIntosh also amassed what he called a "prodigious" theological library "that includes tools for translating ancient Hebrew and Greek texts, Biblical commentaries, liturgical studies and Christian history."

McIntosh was born on September 21, 1953, in Xenia, Ohio, the son of an Air Force officer whose postings took the family to Germany, the Philippines and California's Santa Ynez Valley. He graduated from Union High School in Santa Ynez in 1971, Columbia International University in South Carolina and received a master's degree in Christian education from Malone University in 2002.

McIntosh is preceded in death by his father Ray, mother, Jean, and sister Risë. He is survived by his wife, Sarah (Howes) McIntosh, his children Jonathan (Ashley), Angus Jr., Mary (Joe), and 6 grandchildren Cora, Nola, Vera, Harry, Dominic and Frank. Brother, Michael (Donna) McIntosh, Lachlan McIntosh, Nathan McIntosh, and sisters Jo (John) McIntosh Hill, and Jean McIntosh.

Calling hours will be Thursday Aug 8, 2024, from 4-7 pm at the Arnold Funeral Home at 1517 Market Ave N. Funeral services will be Friday Aug 9 at 11:00 am St. John's Anglican Church, 8169 Kent Ave NE, Canton, OH 44721.

St. Christopher's Anglican Church, Attn: Jim Smart, Treasurer
426 Memory Lane, Wooster OH 44691
Web: https://www.stchristopherswooster.org/