The Canadian Culinary Championships were held this weekend in Vancouver. If you are a foodie (and I am), watching some of the country’s best chefs cook up a storm was thrilling.

The weekend began Thursday evening at the ultra-cool Gotham Restaurant where organizers introduced the mystery wine to the chefs who had less than 24 hours to prepare a dish to match the wine.  The wine label was not revealed so the chefs had to base their menu choices on taste alone. On Friday evening, hosted at the Republic nightclub, we were treated to seven succulent matches for the mystery wine. Being as these were the best chefs in the country, there wasn’t a bad dish. But the People’s Choice Award went to Mathieu Cloutier of Montreal’s Kitchen Galerie – a foreshadowing of things to come.

Saturday morning featured the infamous blackbox competition. The chefs, each paired with one of their sous chefs, were given a box of ingredients and within 60 minutes they had to create a menu and prepare two dishes. About 100 spectators crowded into the Sheraton Wall Centre’s catering kitchen to watch the chefs perform their magic. And magic it was as the crazy ingredients came out of the box - quail, fennel, arctic char, dragon fruit and a dark local beer – and within 60 minutes (or less, in some cases) two chefs prepped, cooked, plated and garnished two dishes for 8 people. As all previous observers suggested, this was truly the peak event. Watching the likes of David Lee of Toronto’s Nota Bene, Matthew Carmichael of Ottawa’s E18hteen, Jan Hrabec (working with her daughter as sous chef) of Canmore’s Crazyweed Kitchen and Rob Feenie of the Cactus Club Café (originally of Vancouver, but now also in Edmonton and other Canadian cities) do it all was inspiring.

I should also mention Edmonton chef Nathin Bye and his sous chef Ryan of Lazia Restaurant who were only 26 and 20 years of age, respectively. While these guys and chefs of their calibre live in a rarified world of preparing high-priced food in big ticket restaurants, they are often regular folks who don’t come from high society. They just work very hard, refining their skills and their craft and their taste buds to produce art from food.

The Saturday night event was a bit of an anti-climax. Too many people prevented us from tasting most of the chef’s dishes. Fortunately, we were seated next to Mathieu Cloutier’s station and for some unknown reason most of the 500 attendees didn’t seem to notice it. He served a rabbit dish that was rich and rare and had champion written all over it. M. Cloutier’s rabbit dish clinched it for him. Lucky me, I had three portions of it – just to avoid chewing my own arm off.

The after-party redeemed the evening. Back at Gotham, we drank a few rounds with the Cloutier team and sang at the piano bar. Leigh-Anne (pictured with Michael Lyon, a past GMP winner) had a great time getting to know all the chefs. We ended the night with all the chefs at Feenie’s Cactus Club where, finally at 1:00 am, we enjoyed a couple of succulent filets and some salty fries. The fancy stuff is great, but that steak sure hit the spot.