by Malcolm Jolley

Top Chef, the American TV show that features real professional chefs cooking for, and being judged by, real culinary professionals is a kind of reality show for grown-ups. On Monday, April 11, Top Chef Canada debuts on Food Network Canada, and grown-up Canadian foodies can watch 16 of our own young pros from across the country battle it out for the benefit of the Dominion’s fooderatti. It’s about time and I can’t wait.

Hosting the show will be Chef Mark McEwan, no stranger to TV or the ordeals of the stove, joined by the über-entertainment-journalist, and Toronto native, Thea Andrews. I caught up with the dynamic duo at a Food Network event at the Art Gallery of Ontario on April 7. The six Ontario contestants had just cooked us (us being two dozen of my food writing, videographing and photographing brothers and sisters) each an hors d’oeuvre consisting of the black box ingredients of BC Kumamoto oysters, Maritime yellowtail tuna and Quebec foie gras. Andrews and McEwan discuss the trials and tribulations of shooting the show in the video below.

Malcolm Jolley is the Managing Editor of Good Food Revolution and Executive Director of Good Food Media, the non-profit organization that publishes GFR. Follow him at twitter.com/malcolmjolley.