Ottawa chef Marc Lepine wins gold at Canadian Culinary Championship!

FEB 12 12 – 6:15 AM — Congratulations to Ottawa chef Marc Lepine of Atelier restaurant for winning gold only hours ago at the Canadian Culinary Championships, the finale in a series of cross-Canada cheffing competitions organized by Gold Medal Plates. Marc beat out some of Canada’s biggest culinary heavyweights, including Vancouver’s Rob Feenie of the Cactus Club Restaurants, and Jonathan Gushie of the Relais et Chateau property, Langdon Hall Country House Hotel & Spa in Cambridge, Ont.

Citizen dining critic Anne DesBrisay, who is a judge at the prestigious three-day event in Kelowna, B.C., says Marc was the “unanimous winner” who “won every competition by a landslide.”

“Every judge from every region across the country agreed: Marc Lepine was the undisputed winner not just of the competition as a whole, but at each level of the competition — from the mystery wine pairing event to the Black Box to (the) Grande Finale, at which he recreated the dish that secured him the gold in the regional competition in Ottawa last fall,” she says.

[CORRECTION: In fact, Marc placed second in the Grand Finale, but first in other categories, making him overall winner -- Ron E.]

Tarrah MacPherson, sommelier and food and beverage manager at the host Delta Grand Okanagan Hotel, said Marc’s dishes were nothing short of “amazing.”

“Lepine’s food was off the charts,” she says.

There were three challenges in all:

First, on Friday a mystery wine pairing where each chef was provided the same Canadian wine, to create a perfect culinary pairing on a very strict, local-ingredient budget.

That contest was followed Saturday morning by a Black Box Competition where chefs and their assistants were given 60 minutes to plan and create two different dishes, using the diverse food items provided.

This year they were given six black box items: Lake Diefenbaker steelhead trout, Mariposa farm goose breast Alberta parsley root, Manitoba wild rice, cloudberries from Newfoundland, and Le rassembleu cheese from Quebec. Marc’s two dishes were fish with herbed spaetzle, fresh hand-made ricotta, purée of cloudberries, root crisp, brown butter hollandaise poured tableside; his second dish: Seared goose breast, rosemary confit potatoes, blue cheese mayonnaise, puffed wild rice.

Finally, at the Grand Finale on Saturday chefs created their most innovative dishes, paired with a complimenting Canadian wine of their choice.

According to every account, Marc aced them all!

About an hour after he was crowned Canadian Champion, Marc said on Twitter: “Gold. This will not sink in for a while, I think. With Takeover, I feel like the whole city of Ottawa was part of this.”

Marc was referring to an ambitious, heart-felt show of solidarity, dubbed Weekend Takeover by his friends, where 25 Ottawa chefs, organized by executive chef Matt Carmichael at Restaurant E18hteen, Social and Sidedoor, took over Marc’s popular restaurant on Rochester Street for the weekend while Marc was away with his staff at the competition.

Photo L-R at right: Bronze  medalist Jean-Philippe St-Denis, gold Marc Lepine, silver Rob Feenie.

The alternative was that Marc would have been forced to close 22-seat Atelier for three nights, on one of the busiest weekends of the year, at considerable financial loss. The three-day Weekend Takeover wrapped up on Saturday. The restaurant was sold out each night at $150, with $50 from each seat earmarked for the Ottawa Food Bank.

Marc’s big win, announced at about 2 a.m. Eastern Time, comes after Marc took gold in Ottawa in November at one of nine regional Canadian competitions that qualified him for the grand championship. It was only his third year in competition.

Placing silver in this weekend’s national contest was chef Rob Feenie of Cactus Club restaurants in Vancouver, while bronze went to chef Jean-Philippe St-Denis of Kitchen Galerie Poisson, Montreal.

We’ve been following Marc for quite some time and paid some special attention to him during his journey through this weekend.

Friday was the first night of competition at the El Dorado Hotel.  It was the mystery wine competition.  I arrived early and was lucky to capture a few moments of his time.  Marc was as cool as a cucumber and at the same time so personable.

Prior to the competition, he along with the other contestants had to go on stage to reveal their dish and their opinions on what the wine was.  He got the wine right.  Riesling with a bit of age, Ontario. It was  2008 Chateau des Charmes Riesling.

His dish of lagoustines wrapped in avocado with burnt orange and puffed rice was super cool.  The textures on the plate were incredible.  Almost every other chef on Friday used bacon in some form or another.  Marc didn’t and it paid off.

FYI  - Marc placed No. 1 on Friday night, No. 1 in the black box competition on Saturday morning, and No. 2 Saturday night for the aggregate win … and it was unanimous. … The general consensus was that his food was unique and cool.

His humility was probably his best character.

Some background on Marc Lepine, Canada’s latest culinary superstar: