Recent seasons of Top Chef, Bravo’s standard-bearer of excellence when it comes to reality competition series, have skipped around the globe, exposing how local cuisine and a country’s culture are as intertwined as salt and pepper. (I don’t know if that is true about salt and pepper; one of the pleasures of watching Top Chef is that you can be an obsessive fan even while boasting not a single cooking skill.)
These seasons have been showcases for what makes regions around the world, their people, and their traditions as unique and profound as the food that comes from them.
So it was a pleasure to see that, immediately in Thursday night’s premiere of the new season, Top Chef: Destination Canada, the proverbial “Canadian tuxedo” makes an appearance. “We pulled out those real quick,” Gail Simmons says, grinning from a conference room in Manhattan’s iconic 30 Rockefeller Plaza, a stunning view of the city skyline looming behind her.
At the top of the episode, when Simmons and her co-judges Tom Colicchio and Kristen Kish greet this season’s competitors in a kitchen in Toronto, they’re wearing the dually mocked and cherished stereotypical ensemble of denim-on-denim, cheekily waiting if any of the elite Canadian chefs who soon join them will notice.
“Canadians don’t really call it a Canadian tuxedo, the same way they don’t call it Canadian bacon,” Simmons, who was born and raised in Toronto, adds. She’s unsure of the denim formalware’s provenance. “It probably started as a bit of a joke about Canadians, not by Canadians. There’s a lot of prairie in Canada and there’s a lot of cowboys. Maybe it started with all the denim?” she guesses.
The three judges start unpacking the gourmet and, it must be said, massive sandwiches that were ceremoniously placed in front of them—it wouldn’t be a Top Chef interview without food.
We start chatting the surreal political circumstances during which this Canada-set season is premiering (more on that to come), when Colicchio looks up from his phone, adopts a sly grin, and starts reading the true history of the Canadian tuxedo: “OK, so in 1951, Bing Crosby was denied entry into a Vancouver hotel for wearing denim. Levi Strauss company then designed a custom denim tuxedo for Crosby as a publicity stunt.”
Everyone laughs at the random trivia, but in hindsight the moment was emblematic of what Top Chef does so well—and takes so seriously.
Whether in London doing a challenge about tea service, in Wisconsin asking chefs to cook with (obviously) cheese, or this season in Canada theming an episode around poutine, the show takes care to explain the significance of various old culinary chestnuts, often as a means of introducing the contestants and viewers to the full, often surprising spectrum of the region’s cuisine.
“Obviously, [Canadian cuisine] is a lot more than poutine and maple syrup, although they’re clichés for a reason. So we embrace both,” Simmons says. “They both make appearances on the show, but the beauty of Top Chef is that we do go so much deeper into the food culture.”
The premiere episode immediately immerses contestants into the expanse and diversity of Canada, tasking them with making dishes featuring ingredients indigenous to areas as far as way from each other as the Vancouver west coast to the Prince Edward Island waterfront on the northeast.
“Like everywhere, there isn’t a ‘country’s cuisine,’” Colicchio says. “Think about it. What is American cuisine?”
“If you go to Nova Scotia, it’s going to be very different than Vancouver. If you go to Montreal, it’s going to be very different than out in Alberta. It’s all different,” Colicchio adds, with Simmons agreeing: “It’s a massive country, just like America.”
Beyond their preconceived notions about the country’s food, American audiences may also tune into the new season of Top Chef with stereotypes in mind about the Canadian people. Chiefly that, well…they’re just so nice.
Simmons, the Canadian native, deferred to her colleagues to speak on that issue, jokingly leaning close to hear their answers.
The celebrity guests on the season, including Canadian actors Michael Cera and Schitt’s Creek star Sarah Levy were exceptionally nice, Kish, who is in her second season replacing Padma Lakshmi in dual roles as host and judge, says. “Maybe it’s the Canadian part of them, but I think Top Chef just welcomes and embraces and celebrates nice people who want to talk about food. Whether you’re a fan of the show, or you cook in Canada, or you’re a chef from another part of the world, everyone is just happy to be there.”
“It’s a great day when you get to all sit around a table and talk about food amongst people who are just thrilled to be enjoying it,” she adds. “I find people nice everywhere, except in New York,” Colicchio, who lives in the city, says, chuckling. “People don’t have time for the niceties, but they’re nice. They’re just always in a rush. [In Canada], life slows down a little bit, so you actually have time to be nice.”
Relations between the American production team and the Canadian locals, then, certainly seemed to be diplomatic as the show filmed. No one, however, could have anticipated that the season would premiere amid historic frostiness between the two countries’ leaders over tariffs, the border, and Donald Trump’s non-joking insistence on making Canada the 51st U.S. state. (I certainly never expected to be quizzing Tom Colicchio about international relations while interviewing about a Bravo reality series.)
“I think it’s perfect timing,” Simmons says. “I mean, we could never have imagined what’s happening…”
She remembers when she took her oath to become a U.S. citizen, during which she pledged allegiance to the American flag. One of the questions that is asked by officiating officers at citizenship ceremonies is whether the person will bear arms against their home country, their birth country.
“I wanted to say to her that day, several years ago, ‘Can you ever imagine a time that’s going to happen? I’m from Canada, guys. Come on! We don’t have to worry about Canada and the U. S. ever being mad at each other…’”
Colicchio interjects, reminding them that they were about to fly back to Toronto for the official Top Chef: Destination Canada premiere there. “So tomorrow you should go sleeveless so you can bear your arms,” he cracks.
“That’s a good point,” she says, laughing. “I don’t actually think it’s going to come to that. It’s just an interesting thing that the world is changing very quickly. And I think it’s a great time to show Americans how much there is to Canada, how distinct it is. But more than that, to show how there’s been hundreds of years of friendship of being each other’s closest trading partner.”
So barring any need to one day bear arms, there are 15 chef contestants drawing knives and sweating it out in the Top Chef kitchen, proving that, 22 seasons in, the series hasn’t lost any of the class or the fun that’s made it one of reality TV’s greatest success stories.
“Very quickly, Top Chef singled itself out, especially in the culinary competition world, as being the North Star, the guiding light, the place where professional, serious chefs to go,” Kish, who also has the distinction of winning the series’ 10th season, says. “Everyone looks for something different when they go on the show, but you trust what’s happening there is going to highlight you and what you do in your profession in a serious, positive, professional light.”
And as they finish up their lunch, it becomes clear just how integral, like any ingredients of an excellent dish, the rapport of these three judges are to Top Chef’s reign. They riff on classic series lore like why chefs almost always tank when trying to make a risotto, which other culinary competition series they watch (not many), and their evolving fashion on the show.
“Things change when you get to work alongside people that you obviously love and respect, that you genuinely miss when you’re not with them,” Kish says, as Simmons and Colicchio, who had just been joking about the “extensive” hair-and-makeup routine he requires, look on, appearing genuinely touched. They all seem to be in agreement, especially after the Destination: Canada season: not a bad gig, eh?
