OTTAWA — Winners of Canada’s Great Kitchen Party’s regional competitions are preparing to face off at the Canadian Culinary Championships (CCCs) in Ottawa January 31 to February 1.
This year marks the first time the CCCs have been hosted in Ottawa, following nine years of the competition being held in Kelowna, B.C.
“We’re thrilled to bring our premier culinary event to Ottawa,” says Karen Blair, co-founder, Canada’s Great Kitchen Party. “It’s fitting that the best chefs in Canada will be competing for the championship trophy in the shadow of Parliament Hill. The culinary scene in Ottawa is an exciting and diverse one, with its chefs having had much success at the national level.”
Chefs competing at the 2020 CCCs are:
- Roger Ma – Boulevard Kitchen and Oyster Bar (Vancouver)
- Kai Koroll – BLOCK ONE Restaurant (Lake Country, B.C.)
- Jenny M. Kang – Shokunin (Calgary)
- JP Dublado – River Cree Resort and Casino (Edmonton)
- Darren Craddock – The Village Bistro (Saskatoon)
- Emily Butcher – deer + almond (Winnipeg)
- Keith Pears – W Toronto
- Ian Carswell – Black Tartan Kitchen (Carleton Place, Ont.)
- Marc-André Jetté – Hoogan et Beaufort (Montreal)
- Matt Pennell – Legends Restaurant (Moncton, N.B.)
- Barry Mooney – Fresh Twenty One (Dartmouth, N.S.)
- Kyle Puddester – Fork (Mobile, N.L.)
The current Canadian Champion, Yannick LaSalle of Les Fougères, will also be in attendance as the event’s VIP chef.
The CCC is comprised of three judged events:
- Mystery Wine Pairing — chefs are given a mystery bottle of wine and challenged to create a dish with local ingredients to best complement the vintage within a set time and budget
- Black-Box Competition — chefs are given a black box containing a small array of diverse foods and must produce and plate a dish for the national judges within one hour
- Grand Finale — chefs create their best dish for guests to sample
