14-03-2025
'Top Chef: Destination Canada' Episode 1 recap: Best bites and dish that was 'elevated hospital food'
Top Chef is back, but this time things look slightly different, with the show moving to Canada for Season 22, Top Chef: Destination Canada. Host Kristen Kish, head judge Tom Colicchio, and Canadian judge Gail Simmons are guiding the 15 contestants on a Canadian culinary journey, with stops in Toronto, Calgary, Montreal and Prince Edward Island.
For the first episode, all the chefs travelled to Toronto. Fourteen of the chefs are based in the U.S., while one chef is Canadian, Massimo Piedimonte from Montreal, chef and owner of Cabaret l'Enfer.
"If I fail, I don't think I'll be able to go back home, " Massimo says, referencing his position as the only Canadian chef in the competition.
Before the chefs get into the Quickfire Challenge, Kristen explained that, just like last season, no immunity will be given for winning these challenges. Instead, they have the opportunity to win Quickfire Cash. The winner of each elimination round will get immunity for the next elimination the first Quickfire of the season, the chefs had to go into the Top Chef pantry and select one item. Once they returned, they were paired in groups of three, based who they shared a car with to the competition. Then the chef's were tasked with making a dish using each person's ingredient, plus three ingredients selected by the judges — tomatoes, clams and chives.
The winning group received $15,000, $5,000 each.
While many teams worked smoothly there were some differing opinions. On the Red team, which included Vincenzo "Vinny", Lana and Paula, Vinny had the idea to serve the corn and clam chowder using an apple as the bowl, but Lana and Paula were skeptical about the idea.
Additionally, Anya was feeling left out on the Blue team, with Zubair and Bailey creating, as Anya described, a "Chicago clique."
But hen it came to the final dishes, all the groups did quite well.
'I get grumpy when the food's not so good, I'm not grump right now. I'm really happy," head judge Tom said.
But the winner ended up being Team Yellow, Mimi, César and Katianna, who made an apple and fennel soup with clams, corn and chorizo relish.
Moving on to the elimination challenge, things got a bit more heated.
Five special guest chefs were introduced, each representing one of the five regions of Canada. Sheila Flaherty for the North, Jeremy Chales for the Atlantic region, David Zilber representing the Central region, Dale MacKay for the Prairies, and Nicole Gomes representing the West.
Each chef revealed a selection of six ingredients that represent their respective regions:
West: Pacific salmon, salt spring island lamb, red fire wheat, foraged mushrooms, hazelnuts, plums
Prairies: Ribeye, walleye, red lentils, sour cherries, tomatoes, cold pressed canola oil
Central: Rainbow trout, peaches, corn, ice wine, pea shoots, pork
Atlantic: Cod, dulse seaweed, potatoes, snow crab, blueberries, screech rum
North: Beets, carrots, crowberries, turbot, arctic char, oats
Because the Yellow team won the Quickfire Challenge, they got the first shot to select which region's ingredients they'll work with for the elimination challenge. They chose Central and selected to Purple to go next, and they chose the Prairies. The Red team then chose West, Blue team chose North, leaving the Green team with the Atlantic ingredients.
The chefs were given two hours to cook and serve their dishes as Casa Madera restaurant, in the 1 Hotel in Toronto, but there was an added catch. This was an individual challenge, meaning that even though each team has access to the same ingredients list, their teammates are actually their competition. One chef in each group will be at the top of the pack, while the chefs with the worst dish on their respective teams will be up for elimination.
After the chefs got shopping with their $250 budget and 30-minute time crunch, and started cooking, some chefs struggled.
Kat didn't have enough time to put all her components on the plate, and Mimi raced against the clock to cook pork, while also overcooking mashed potatoes. Additionally, Tristen didn't have enough time to include the curry he made for his dish.
Here's how the feedback for each chef went:
Lana — Seared salmon with dawadawa cream, lamb fat-roasted mushrooms and hazelnut gremolata — Well cooked with great texture
Vinny — Confit salmon with miso-hazelnut butter mushrooms and consommé — Perfectly cooked, a subtle dish full of flavour and power
Paula — Grilled lamb with mushroom mole, hazelnut pipián and plum salsa macha — Mole lacked spice, Kristen's lamb is "severely" undercooked while Gail's was overcooked
Kat — Pan-fried walleye, wild rice with tomatoes and smoked sour cherries — Didn't get everything on every plate, but good flavour in the rice and Gail thought cherries were the best part (if you had them on the plate)
Henry — Ribeye tartare with toasted lentil aioli, sour cherry chimichurri, cumin and lentil cracker and egg yolk custard — "Juicy" tartar with the choice of ribeye, the cracker had good flavour
Corwin — Grilled ribeye, red lentil purée with tomatoes and sour cherries — Cook was good on the beef, but a disjointed dish with the purée
César — Corn butter poached trout, grilled radicchio with corn and pea shoot dressing — Good balance, appealing pocket the trout was cooked in
Mimi — Grilled pork loin and potato purée with corn beurre monté and peach relish — Dry, beige pork and muddy potatoes that look like they were made from powder, and David said it looked and tasted like "elevated hospital food"
Katianna — Pork loin katsu with miso, corn and pea shoot gravy and kimchi peaches — Peaches were one of the best bites Tom had all day, but didn't love the gravy, but Kristen thought the gravy was the best part
Tristen — Poached cos with snow crab and dulse mousse, butter pached snow crab with potato and dulse crumble — Cod was cooked perfectly, great pop of coriander, and Tom thought the curry (that was missing) would have maybe overpowered the dish
Shuai — Steamed cod with braised daikon, snow crab and egg drop sauce and crispy dulse — "Beautiful" cook to the cod, crab and daikon were the perfect compliment, very cohesive
Massimo — Cod "en écailles" with buerre blanc and smoked dulse — "Tonge and cheek" use of potatoes as scales on the fish, cod wasn't overcooked, but not cooked as well as his competitors
Anya — Ukha with arctic char, potatoes, beet caviar and rye cracked — Great connection to Russian cuisine, "fantastic sourness" to the soup, but the cracker wasn't a favourite
Zubair — Meen moilee wit turbot, beet and crowberry achar — Ratio was off, fish was overpowered
Bailey — Carrot risotto with confit arctic char and pickled beets — Gail said it wasn't the worst risotto she's had on the show, but "not good"
Shuai, Vinny, Henry, César and Anya were selected as the best in their respective groups, with Vinny winning the challenge. Mimi and Kat were in the bottom, with Mimi eliminated, getting sent to Last Chance Kitchen for one more chance to stay in the competition.
In terms of how Top Chef decides who's on the show, part of the process is to ensure that there are chefs from different geographic locations and who specialize in different cuisines, but recommendations can play a big part in getting someone on the show.
"We don't want to have all the chefs coming from [Los Angeles] and New York, trying to spread it out around the country," showrunner Doneen Arquines told Yahoo Canada during a set visit in Toronto last year. "Then also the style of cuisine, so that we're not seeing 15 of the same kinds of cuisine together. So this season we had everything from Russian to Trinidadian to Jamaican."
"Then also a lot of recommendations. A lot of the chefs that are on the show these days are recommended to us by chefs that Tom and Gail and Kristen, our casting department, has met over the years, or that we've worked with. So it's really a lot of word of mouth, and then there's so many Top Chef alumni as well who have come across great chefs. And every once in a while ... people will send me Instagram pages for people."
