Waterloo chef honing his chops for championship
Waterloo native aims to win gold with Canadian cuisine at the Olympics of food
KITCHENER — It’s the biggest and most prestigious cooking competition in the world, and next year’s contest will feature a Waterloo native.
For Trevor Ritchie, it’s been a dream to compete as a Canadian at Le Bocuse d’Or in Lyon, France.
“It’s like the Olympics and World Cup of food,” said Ritchie in a recent interview from George Brown College in Toronto where he works.
“I had to work my butt off to get here,” said Ritchie, 33.
“I remember watching a video as a kid. I wanted to be the first Canadian on the podium,” he said. “It’s been a vision and a dream I’ve always had.”
And watching from the stands will be plenty of fans, including his mother. “It’s a sporting event,” he said. Ritchie and his team — commis (righthand) Jenna Reich and coach James Olberg, also a Kitchener native — came in second at the semifinal competition in Mexico earlier this month.
Team Canada wowed a panel of Michelin-star judges with their Canadian dishes including Canadian ice cider and caviar, Ontario apples, Quebec foie gras and British Columbia clams.
Ritchie, who grew up in Waterloo Region, started working in the kitchen washing dishes at the former Benjamin’s restaurant in St. Jacobs.
“I fell in love with chopping onions, peeling carrots,” he said.
As a young boy, he loved his German grandmother’s staples including schnit-
zel and egg noodles known as spaetzle.
Ritchie has fond memories of food on his aunt’s farm outside of Waterloo.
“The smell and taste of cherry tomatoes and green beans, and picking it off the vine,” he said.
He attended Elmira District Secondary School and moved to Resurrection Catholic Secondary School to enrol in the hospitality program.
Resurrection hospitality and tourism teacher Tyrone Miller saw Ritchie at a competition and convinced him to attend Resurrection and work under him.
“He had lots of questions. He is disciplined and he listens,” Miller said.
“He would take it all in and then make his own choices,” he said.
Miller and Ritchie became friends and stayed in touch over the years. Miller introduced Ritchie to Olberg, a KitchenerWaterloo Collegiate graduate, and the pair connected over food.
At Ritchie’s wedding, both Miller and Olberg prepared the meal.
Miller recalls when Ritchie won gold in the Ontario Skills Competition in 2004 he qualified for the national competition in Winnipeg and needed suitcases to carry his pots and pans to the competition.
“He picked up these old suitcases on the side of the road and loaded them up with pots and pans,” he said.
“His guts and determination got him there,” Miller said.
Ritchie attended George Brown College and worked at Langdon Hall in Cambridge for three years and at other restaurants in Toronto and Niagara-onthe-Lake.
Now, Team Canada moves on to the finale by practising different dishes. The biennial competition will feature 24 chefs from 60 countries and each team must present the gastronomy of their country.
The Bocuse d’Or was founded in 1987 by renowned French chefs Paul Bocuse and Albert Romain who wanted to create a competition to bring the world’s greatest chefs to an international stage. The grand prize is 20,000 euros.
Canadians that have competed for the celebrated prize include Jamie Kennedy and Michael Noble. Robert Sulatycky came in fourth in 1999.
Each chef has 5 1/2 hours to prepare one meat dish and one fish dish reflecting the cuisine of their country, and competitors are judged on taste, presentation, creativity as well as non-wastage, hygiene, technique and organization.
This summer, Ritchie will work part time at the college and the remainder of the time on recipes for the finale. In the fall, his fulltime efforts will be on food prep and presentation.
The uber chic contest is not only about the food, but how it’s presented. There are custom moulds and top-of-the-line equipment including silver platters etched in gold.
“Anybody who is anybody is at this competition,” Ritchie said.
By September, he will know what kind of meat he will be cooking and in November more details.
But until then he will practising with universal ingredients that accompany meat, such as potatoes and mushrooms.
So what are those Canadian ingredients he will feature next year?
“It’s top secret. It will be a lastminute reveal,” he said. “We need to create an unbelievable wow factor.”