Canada’s pride in culinary excellence on full display at Canada's Great Kitchen Party

Canada’s Great Kitchen Party celebrated its 19th year with another great event wowing the palates of Ottawa’s foodies.

With each passing year I’m increasingly impressed by the talent on display from every corner of Canada and we’ll have a few highlights for you to enjoy.

Over two days, 10 chefs competed in three different challenges: Mystery Wine, Black Box and the grand finale featuring the regional winning dishes that brought these chefs to this event.

Last year's Culinary Champion Jasper Cruickshank of Whistler’s Wild Blue restaurant was on hand for a guest appearance, impressing attendees with a sumptuous dish of Hokkaido scallop in a yuzu emulsion. An easy reminder as to why he carried the trophy.

David Lawrason, Canada’s Great Kitchen Party national wine advisor responsible for the wines at this event, would later on reveal the mystery wine.

It was a Semillon from Niagara winemaker Martin Werner of MW Cellars. Semillon is a white grape commonly found in both dry and dessert wines from Bordeaux and Werner had knocked it out of the park with a wine that guests loved.

I tried his Chardonnay and Gamay as well and both were supremely elegant, aromatic and for the retail price of $18 a bottle represented one of the clearest bargains I’ve seen from Niagara in many years.

All 10 chefs had been given a label-less bottle the night before and were asked to create a dish for the public that would pair with this wine. Each team was given $700 with which they would buy ingredients to feed 300 guests.

In the end it was local hero Lizardo Becerra of Raphaël restaurant that walked away with the People’s Choice/Mystery Wine Award.

It was the first dish I’d tried and straight-away I doubted that it would have any serious contenders. It was a masterfully constructed plate of beet-cured Hokkaido scallop on a citrus grana padano foam and crisps of lemongrass plantain that landed like an umami one-two punch.

The other dish that left a strong impression came courtesy of the very talented François-Emmanuel Nicol of Quebec city’s legendary Taniere restaurant. He offered a mousseline of cod between pieces of pan-fried bread, a rolled slice of fuji apple stuffed with shrimp on a pool of bisque scented with Keffir lime leaf and lemongrass. Magic.

I swear this year saw a remarkable depth of talent and promise from both younger and older chefs. Perhaps more so than in previous years. What I mean is highlighted by two chefs whose dishes were, to my palate, not as inspired on the first night but who rose to the occasion with two of the standouts on the final night.

Chef Nicholas Walters of St. John’s The Merchant Tavern created a contrasting dish of citrus driven tuna tartar next to a supremely fine foie gras cremeux dressed further by a partridge berry compote, sesame brittle and crowned with a squid ink tuile.

Everyone I spoke with was in rapture over the complex dessert created by Chef Austin Granados of Winnipeg's Cake-ology. It was indeed one of the finest things I’d tried that night. Spelling it out will be a mouthful so settle in. 

His composition involved burrata mousse, strawberry kombucha confit, Japanese sweet potato cake, Manitoba bass bone tuile, duck fat caramel, kombu and shiitake black sugar dust, apricot kernel cream, basil and kaffir lime oil, microgreens and a dehydrated milk chip. Writing that took longer than to eat the thing. It was just that good.

We all did our best to make our way through the waves of astonishing flavours of both wines and foods and the hard work would soon result in the awards being presented a short time later.

Chef François-Emmanuel Nicol of Taniere restaurant landed in third place with a cryptically described “Picanha of beef with preserved memories of Canadian summer.” Well then! It was simple but excellent, and yes, I actually struggled to place all the seasonings used although I suspect some of them may have been foraged in Quebec. 

Rightfully in the top three was Jordan Holden of Moncton's Atelier Tony. His creation of rabbit ballotine with stonefruit and rabbit liver tartlet alongside hazelnut-parsnip puree, a smoked rabbit kidney tuile and spiced jus was an inspiration both in flavour and presentation. Truly deserving of an award.

As happens every year, some of us never do get a chance to try all the chefs' creations and this is problematic when you’re with the media. 

It was, of course, the gold medal-winning dish that I missed, and I hope that future organizers can see how to ensure that the media has access to each dish. It’s actually a very simple fix.

As it stands, you’ll need to satisfy yourself with this picture of these two handsome blokes, one of whom is this year's Canadian Culinary Champion, Alex Kim.

Alex convinced the judges with his wild sablefish and Cortes Island scallop terrine, sidestripe shrimp mandu with Dungeness crab and Okanagan apple and Kusshi oyster on sea lettuce tartlet, Pemberton salsify, and six-month fermented DoenJang, and shiso.

I was delighted to run into two people I know quite well from my years of Niagara wine studies. Ann Sperling and her husband Peter Gamble, are two of Canada’s finest winemakers and they did me the honour of pouring a lineup from their latest project Dobbin Estate Winery.

This year's musical act was the Scottish-born, Canadian singer-songwriter Johnny Reid. He performed a number of his well-known hits and recounted a story about how difficult it was for him when he first came to Canada. 

‘During that time, there were things that I could only tell to my guitar”, he recalled and I admit I found this deeply affecting. He and his band then pledged to donate 5 thousand dollars to one of Canada’s Great Kitchen Party charities Music Counts, which benefits children in marginalized communities.

For children who are bullied or feel like outsiders, it’s easy to imagine how a musical instrument, that they could not otherwise afford, must feel like a trusted source of comfort.

The other charity benefitting children is the sport-focussed Spirit North founded by Canadian Olympian Beckie Scott. They work with indigenous youth to ensure access to sports equipment and activities. They also see young people grow into leaders with excellent academic results. 

Canada’s Great Kitchen Party also works with local charities in all the communities where regional chefs competitions are held, ensuring equitable access to healthy food. It’s beautiful work and we are fortunate in Ottawa to be able to participate.