Ten chefs from across Canada are taking their shot in the Canadian Culinary Championships in Ottawa on Saturday.
Back for its fifth year in Ottawa and celebrating its twentieth anniversary, the three-part competition drew hundreds of spectators to the Collège La Cité. The chefs competing in the contest were hand picked from their provinces after winning gold medals in regional competitions and faced off in multiple cooking challenges.
“It’s fun to see how they decide on the ingredients and put things together. It’s been a lot of fun, really stressful seeing the last few minutes of them panicking to put on to the plate,” says Jennifer Wilkinson, attendee.
For the “Black Box” competition, each chef is presented one box with seven unlabelled mystery ingredients. They must then use those ingredients to create two dishes with no help.
In 60 minutes, the chefs have to announce the two dishes that they’re going to create, plan and cook the dishes and plate 12 of each dish for National judges.
“They’re in a holding room. We’ve confiscated all their cell phones and electronic devices. They’re sitting in a room and we just go in and say, ‘okay team,’” says Lisa Pasin, Senior VP of Canada’s Great Kitchen Party.
If the chefs go overtime or miss an ingredient, they get deducted marks.
“You get up there and there’s a bunch of ingredients, so you’re kind of just flying by the seat of your pants. We made two dishes we think tasted good. We’ll see how the judges come out with it,” says Jason Sawision, chef contestant from Ottawa.
“It can be a career changer for these chefs. We have been told that even when they won gold at the regional it just changes how busy they are in their restaurant and just the publicity that they receive. They get offered different opportunities,” says Pasin.
Chef Lacey Coffin and sous chef Nicole Pittman from St. John’s say it’s surreal to think about the prospect of winning.
“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’m so glad that we were able to do it. Really glad for my restaurant, as well as bringing a lot of business. There’s been a lot of support from Newfoundland,” says Coffin.
“The restaurant has been so busy since we won in October. It’s hard to keep up with,” says Pittman.
Coffin and Pittman say the challenge was not easy but they were really happy with the ingredients they had.
“We were able to utilize them into things that we were already familiar with because we’re not allowed to take recipes or anything in the room with us. We were able to plug in our talents. I think we did really well,” says Coffin.
“We put all of our heart and soul and Newfoundland on a plate. We’re very proud.”
Saturday evening, the competition will conclude with a Grand Finale at the Rogers Centre. The chefs will prepare food for 500 guests, creating the dish that won they won gold with from their regionals. Guests get to go around tasting these dishes.
The competition benefits and supports multiple organizations, including Music Counts, which gets musical instruments into schools across Canada, Spirit North, which supports Indigenous Youth, Sport and Play, which supports sporting opportunities for children with disabilities, the food charity Nutrition Blocks and Ottawa Network for Education. All money raised in Ottawa, stays in Ottawa.
There will be a bronze and silver winner but only one will be crowned the 2026 champion. The winning chef will be named at the Grand Finale Saturday evening and walk away with $10,000 cash.
“I hope that the restaurant gets a bit of exposure, that the staff get some recognition. In the end, it’s kind of just about coming together as a team and having fun. There’s a lot of really good competitors here, so it’s just a tough competition and we’ll see how it ends,” says Sawision.
The competition started Friday evening, the with a mystery wine pairing challenge, the bottles stripped of all its labels. Each chef was given $700 to prepare a meal for 350 people to be paired with that wine.
