Vancouver chef wins Canadian Culinary Championships
Question: Chef Alex Chen, you’ve just won the Canadian Culinary Championships. What are you going to do now?
Answer: I’m going to Africa or South America!
A trip to either continent is in the cards for Chen, who won the gold medal at the gala cook-off Saturday in Kelowna.
“I feel great, I feel redeemed,” said Chen, of Boulevard Kitchen and Oyster Bar in Vancouver. “We put in a lot of work this weekend and it worked out to be favourable for us.”
Chen won top honours from the judges for his finale dish ‘Parfait of Wild B.C. Shellfish’, chowder northern divine caviar, bulls kelps brioche paired with a glass of 2016 Ortega from Sea Star winery on Pender Island.
As Canada’s newly-crowned top chef, Chen can choose whether to travel to Peru in South America or Tanzania and the Ivory Coast, both in Africa, to work with chefs at cocoa plantations run by the Cacao Collective.
Eric Gonzalez from L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Montreal won silver, and Barry Mooney from Gio in Halifax won silver.
The championship’s grand finale once again drew a sold-out crowd to the Delta Grand hotel. Judges said it was challenging to pick a winner from among all the mouthwatering creations.
“Tonight we have 11 winners, and if we could bring them all up to the stage we would,” said head judge James Chatto.
Aside from serving as a showcase for some of Canada’s best chefs, the Culinary Championships serves as a fundraiser for the Canadian Olympic Foundation to support high-performance athletes. To date, more than $12 million has been raised.
Olympians in attendance included speedskating gold medalist Lucas Makowsky, snowboard gold medal winner Maelle Ricker, and freestyle gold medal winner Ashleigh McIvor.
“Your support to help our Canadian athletes goes a long way, and your encouragement helps motivate Canadian athletes,” McIvor, who served as event emcee, told the crowd.
The event will be held annually in Kelowna until at least 2020.