Calgary chef “Catches” crown

Posted By TS Owen

Posted 1 year ago

Pam Doyle/Banff Crag & Canyon. Food critic and author John Gilchrist watches as he helps to judge the cooking competition.

By TS Owen

Banff Crag & Canyon

Calgary chef Hayato Okamitsu’s table at the Gold Medal Plates Canadian Culinary Championships grand finale cookoff at the Fairmont Banff Springs Saturday night was crowded with elements designed to tantalize the palates of the judges and the well-dressed crowd of food lovers. But room was created for a small photo of his late mother.

Okamitsu appealed to the carnivore palate with a Canadian-themed menu of braised Alberta short ribs, Quebec foie gras and Nova Scotia lobster bisque.

Last November, Okamitsu won over the judges in Calgary with his vegetarian menu of smoked corn soup, mushroom tortellini and butternut squash parfait.

Okamitsu, who moved to Canada from Japan 10 years ago, fused Japanese and Canadian cuisine to set himself apart from the competition.

“Canada has given me the opportunity to grow — finally, I could do something for Canada and I’m really happy,” he said.

Gold Medal Plates CEO Stephen Leckie said it wasn’t just Okamitsu’s superb culinary skills that wowed the judges.

“He just held his cool,” Leckie said about the intensity of the competition.

“He just stayed consistent and his food was creative, delicious and exciting.”

Holding the finals of the six-year-old competition in Banff was the perfect location since it is organized to raise both the profile of haute cuisine creaters in Canada and money for Olympic athletes. That idea has to date put $2.8 million toward the Own the Podium 2010 and Road to Excellence Beijing Olympic efforts.

The culinary competition is gruelling even to get to the final six. Each city holds preliminary competitions pairing a dozen local hopefuls against the discriminating and demanding taste of the national judges, with the winners then setting their sights on creating combinations of perfect blends, taste pairings and surprise delights with pleasing plate presentations.

Thursday night, the chefs received an unmarked bottle of wine and $350 to go into Banff to buy ingredients to feed 300 guests and the judges with a dish designed to enhance its blend of flavours Friday night.

They spent Saturday morning in the Iron Chef competition in the Banff Springs kitchens where they received a ‘Black Box’ of six ingredients and were given one hour to prepare two dishes for everyone.

Hotel CEO Markus Treppenhauer described it as “a frenzy of chefs like I have never seen before” when he welcomed the crowd to the Van Horne Room Saturday night.

Under television camera scrutiny and amid 300 well-dressed fans of food, they prepared their favourite dishes coupled with Canada’s best wines and then waited for the judges to declare who would take the Gold Medal Chef toque from 2007 winner Melissa Craig from Whistler, B.C.

A silent auction on tables down the centre offered rare wines and unique excursions to increase the donations and guests of the full two-day event paid from $2,390 to $1,495 per couple, all in the cause of culinary appreciation and Olympic dreams.

The food, from mouth melting Kobe beef from Edmonton’s David Cruz to pastry flutes filed with pate to ice wine with duck, sea urchins, crème brulee in eggshells, sweetbreads and shortribs and fine wines, consumed the crowd’s conversation and focus for the evening.

The entire road to the Gold Medal Plates Canadian Culinary Championships Chef 2009 winner will be shown on CTV on May 10.

— With files files from Sun Media

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