Four talents from B.C. on roster

Kym Nguyen's decision to sign on to compete in the ninth season of Top Chef Canada was, admittedly, fuelled by more than a desire to showcase well-honed cooking skills.

There was also an eagerness to connect with other pro chefs during a time that has proven especially trying for the restaurant industry.

“Our industry has fallen because of the pandemic and I miss that sense of community,” Nguyen explains. “I thought, what's better than to hang out with a bunch of chefs and just cook and push ourselves past our limits?”

Nguyen, the sous chef at Pidgin restaurant in Vancouver, will be one of four B.C.-based chefs in the group of 11 Canadian culinary talents vying for the title on the competitive cooking show, which premieres April 19 at 10 p.m. on Food Network Canada.

Vancouver-based foodie and TV personality Mijune Pak will also return as a judge.

On any cooking show, competitors can expect to feel the heat during filming. But Galasa Aden admits things got a bit more intense than he imagined they would.

“The difficulty of the challenges really surprised me,” says Aden, executive chef at Cliffhanger Restaurant at the Panorama Mountain Resort.

“Watching Top Chef Canada at home on my couch, I always thought how easy the challenges were. But once you're in the Top Chef Canada kitchen, with a timer counting down and the lights and camera on, the degree of difficulty comes to light.”

Andrea Alridge, chef de cuisine at Vancouver's CinCin Ristorante + Bar echoes that sentiment.

“It really was an entirely new world for me, and I was slightly shell-shocked at first,” Alridge admits. “The biggest challenge for me was not knowing what I would be faced with each day — we were told nothing.”

Preparation, an important part of daily life in any professional kitchen, is entirely off the table (or, ahem, menu) during the fastpaced cooking segments. It's an element of the competition designed to push the skills of the pro chefs to the limits.

“There truly was never a moment where we could prepare ourselves to expect to know what was happening,” says Siobhan Detkavich, chef de partie at Mission Hill Winery in Kelowna. “It definitely kept us all on our toes.”

While undoubtedly challenging, Alridge says the experience was a true treat to be a part of.

“I learned so much about myself as a chef and a human being,” Alridge says. “I really do feel like this competition pushed me to grow mentally and made me a better person. I learned new tricks from my competitors and most importantly, I gained some very close friends for life.”

“Dreams don't work unless you do,” Detkavich adds. “And that's what Top Chef Canada is all about.”