KELOWNA, B.C. — Chef Yannick LaSalle of Les Fougères in Chelsea, Que. received top honours at this year’s Canadian Culinary Championships in Kelowna, B.C.
LaSalle beat out 10 competing chefs from across the country in the two-day, three-part national finale of Canada’s Great Kitchen Party (CGKP). Along with bragging rights, LaSalle will receive a trip to West Africa or South America to visit a Cacao Barry chocolate plantation.
LaSalle’s winning dish featured fennel with sea buckthorn, Eastern township duck magret (Le Rougié) and Quebec saffron, paired with 2016 Barrel Select VQA Chardonnay from Meldville Wines.
The silver medal was awarded to Christopher Hill from Taste Restaurant Group in Saskatoon. Chef Dave Bohati from Murrieta’s in Calgary won bronze.
In addition of the grand finale event, the chefs had to create a dish to pair with a mystery wine — on a budget of just $500 to feed 400 people — and complete a black-box competition, which featured chestnuts, quinces, saffron, sweet potatoes, lion’s mane mushrooms, buckwheat groats and yogurt.
Chef Takashi Ito, from Aura Waterfront Restaurant + Patio in Victoria, received the People’s Choice award in the Mystery Wine Competition. Ito created seared pork belly and gnocchi, with winter-squash puree and black-sesame tenkasu to pair with this years’ mystery wine, 2016 Vista’s Edge Cabernet Franc from Mission Hill Family Estate.
