After a month and a half of teasers, Food Network Canada's most popular culinary competition series, Top Chef Canada, is back for its eighth season. Oh, the suspense!
With a notably culturally diverse cast, as well as five women in the running, this season could be the show's most accurate portrayal of the country's regional cooking styles–and international backgrounds that influence them–yet.
The season premiere will see the competing chefs cook up a “desert island dish” (a dish that they'd be happy to eat every day for the rest of their lives if they were stranded on a desert island) followed by an especially intriguing elimination, where they need to present a dish that speaks to the culinary trends of the next decade.
It's hard to place bets on who will fare best in a competiiton that is equal parts unpredictable and challenging, but if I were a gambling man, I'd put a few dollars on Halifax's Stephanie Ogilvie, Calgary's Nils Schneider and Montreal's Francis Blais to go far, based solely on their diverse resumes.
For tonight's premiere, though, it is anyone's game.
Top Chef Canada premieres tonight at 8 p.m. (MDT) / 10 p.m. (ET) on Food Network Canada.
