Mathilda Irawan has loved food since the day she was born in Indonesia. At seven month old, she had her first spicy Indonesian dish and was hooked on tasty and spicy food since. At the age of 14, her parents sent her to Western Australia to escape religious and political instability. She graduated high school from Perth, WA. Her family reunited in Toronto, Canada, where she continued her education at the University of Toronto, majoring in Cognitive Behavioural Psychology. To help her parents, she worked several jobs to pay for her university education.
After looking after the sick and handicapped in the community and nursing homes, she started developing injuries and illnesses in her mid twenties that set her back mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and physically. Multiple injuries and car accidents led her to become sicker and sicker by the year. When she turned 31, she hit rock bottom and surrendered. This led her to a plant-based diet, and shortly after, living a vegan lifestyle, aligning with the yogic teaching of Ahimsa (to do no harm). Trying to heal herself, Mathilda went on to study clinical and metaphysical hypnotherapy, yoga therapy, Neurolinguistic Programming, and Holistic Nutrition.
She has always loved experimenting in the kitchen, from baking and cake decorating to cooking multicultural dishes. In 2016, Mathilda co-founded Alam Yoga and Wellness, which, due to exponential growth of the restaurant, has been closed as of Dec 31 2019. Mathilda continues her yoga and hypnotherapy journey at Veda Yoga in Whitby. She has been coaching clients to make small, sustainable changes to release excess weight and achieve long term health by preventing and reversing lifestyle diseases. Her approach is holistic and healthy, looking at the complete Self: mental, emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual. She practices what she preaches, having released 50 lbs of excess weight herself by NOT trying to lose weight. She is also the hypno-yoga lady, where she believes that mindful movement, breathing, and meditation are at the core of healing and fitness (inside and out).
Her belief is that we can be strong without exhausting and torturing the body. Movement should be enjoyable and promote long term health. Her yoga teaching focuses on the basic issues that must first be addressed before doing anything else. Most people are not “fit” enough to work out as a starting point to health as they’re making their misalignments and injuries worse. She is passionate about healing back injuries, living with scoliosis, and realigning the body to perform better in all areas.
She is always sharing her kitchen creations with friends and family as she finds much joy in nourishing people.
She witnessed that not many people ever get off medications once prescribed. She is not interested in managing symptoms; her goal is to heal the root cause and reverse diseases. After overcoming her own health struggles, she is on a mission to get the community healthy and vibrant, starting with their plates. She is here to show people that plant-based foods are healthy AND delicious. And it's a win win not just for our health, but for the animals and the environment too. There is no magic pill or shortcut to overall health and wellbeing. We must do the required work.
In June 2018, Mathilda started Alam Catering as a project and an experiment, where she launched different multicultural dishes for people to pre-order. The universe works in incredible ways. She took over Nourished On The Go in August 2018 as Chef Gabriella Budani returned to school; carrying on the legacy of plant-based eating in Oshawa under MATHILDA'S. The menu is unique and delicious yet low in fat and much healthier than the traditional take on the dishes. There are options for every kinds of food sensitive people out there, such as gluten free, oil free, soy free, etc.
In June 2019, Mathilda’s Restaurant moved to a bigger space across the street and has since welcomed and served tens of thousands of people.
Mathilda is an advocate for finding balance and ease between healthy eating, mindful movement, and joyful living. Mathilda also facilitates soul journey hypnotherapy for a deeper spiritual healing.
Over the years, she has improved her original recipes, making many of them gluten free, refined-sugar free, oil free, and overall much more conducive to healing. This results in the restaurant being recommended by health care professionals in the community. Follow Mathilda’s on Facebook and Instagram. Watch for exciting news, online cooking videos, collaborations with local businesses, daily specials, new retail items, pop-up shops, and more.
