MasterChef Canadian-style
Don’t let Michael Bonacini’s genteel Welsh accent fool you — when things come to a boil on MasterChef Canada, his hot-blooded Italian side can bubble to the top.
The chef doesn’t consider himself the mean one on the homegrown show’s threejudge panel — that title could go to self-proclaimed “demon chef” Alvin Leung — but Bonacini admits his zeal for the contestants to succeed sometimes gets the better of him.
“In every career there are constant ups and downs, and this is a six-week career — a crash course in culinary challenges and cooking and pushing them to be as professional as they can be,” says the co-owner of Oliver & Bonacini Restaurants.
“You have moments of frustration, and one’s enthusiasm can get away from them. One’s anxiousness for them to exceed expectations can get away. It’s human nature. It’s frustrating, it’s demanding, it’s of-the-moment and it’s happening at such a fast pace.”
MasterChef Canada is the toque-and-Timmie’s version of the U.K. series, which also has versions in countries filling the alphabet from Albania to Vietnam. On U.S. broadcaster Fox, Gordon Ramsay has been a MasterChef judge for four seasons, and a kids’ version of the series, MasterChef Junior, debuted in September.
“This is a format show, so there are certain format and guidelines that have to be followed. But what really makes it our very own show is the fact that we have Canadians from east coast to west coast, from all walks of life,” says Bonacini.
“We are using Canadian ingredients from east coast to west coast, and a number of the challenges have a unique Canadian spin to them. So it really is a taste of homegrown Canadiana.”
As per MasterChef dicta, each episode features amateur chefs competing in individual and team-based cooking challenges, with one chef getting the business end of a cleaver — figuratively speaking, this isn’t Mad Max Beyond ThunderDome — until the winner remains.
“As a judge, you’re looking at many different aspects of each cook — the creativity, the way they work, the tastes, the textures, the presentation, and whether they chose the right plate,” says Bonacini.
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