Masterchef Canada is the Canadian version of the reality cooking competition Masterchef, which began airing on CTV in 2014.
Much like its other regional counterparts, Masterchef Canada follows the exploits of anywhere from 16-12 home cooks as they compete in a series of cooking challenges, with the last one standing winning the title of "Masterchef" as well as $100,000 CAD.
The series is hosted and judged by Claudio Aprile, Michael Bonacini and Alvin Leung. It has aired for seven seasons, with Season 7 being a Back to Win season featuring contestants from previous seasons.
This show contains examples of:
- Alliterative Name: Season 5's Jen Jenkins, who would also return in Season 7.
- Catchphrase: Chef Alvin would like to remind you that "Taste is king."
- Character Development:
- During a team challenge in Season 2, Line is paired up with Cody, who she doesn't get along with (herself being older and somewhat stubborn, and Cody being young and somewhat arrogant). However, Line decides to listen to Cody's directions despite her misgivings, and in return Cody keeps her motivated after she takes a fall on her bad knee, and they end up winning the challenge. Line even admits once they've won that she was wrong about Cody.
- Upon returning after his elimination in Season 5, Kaegan is much more humble and has gotten over his feud with Beccy, although his Fatal Flaw of carelessness remains.
- Chekhov's Skill: Season 2's David found his skills as a concrete worker useful in icing a cake with incredible precision, allowing him to take one of the top spots in a birthday cake Mystery Box.
- Cooking Duel: Every season from the fourth onwards has had a challenge where contestants compete in a gauntlet of challenges, with each round having fewer and fewer contestants.
- Season 4 Episode 7 featured a Pressure Test gauntlet featuring eggs, with the top performers of each round being sent to safety. The first round required the home cooks to cook a Scotch egg, the second round an Eggs Benedict, and the third and final round a cheese souffle. Miranda would defeat Alice in the final round to stay in the competition, sending Alice home once again.
- Season 5 Episode 6 featured a Pressure Test gauntlet showcasing French techniques, with the top performers of each round being sent to safety. The first round tasked the home cooks to make a French omelette (with only one egg and four minutes), the second round a butter-basted steak cooked medium-rare, and the final round a crème caramel underneath a caramelized sugar dome. Jonathan's crème caramel collapsed in the final round, and so he was eliminated while Marissa advanced.
- Season 6 Episode 7 featured a Redemption gauntlet featuring knife skills, where eliminated home cooks fought for a chance to return to the competition; the top performers of each round got to advance to the next heat. The first round required contestants to julienne cut various fruits and vegetables to create an Asian rice noodle salad with a Thai chili vinaigrette, the second round required them to filet a Dover sole in order to create Sole meunière, and the final round to French-trim a rack of lamb and cook it medium rare. Rozin would ultimately triumph over Tony in the final round, returning to the competition.
- Season 7 Episode 2 featured a Pressure Test gauntlet featuring Japanese food. The first round required the home cooks to break down a red snapper to prepare snapper usuzukuri-style sashimi. The second round tasked them with creating maki sushi rolls, served uramaki-style (inside-out) with a topping and a tempura element. The third and final round was a replication challenge featuring okonomiyaki. Of the final three, Barrie's okonomiyaki was narrowly judged the worst, sending him home while Andy and April Lee were safe.
- Crippling Overspecialization: The contestants often lean into cuisines they're more familiar with in the beginning, and some have trouble breaking out of their comfort zone.
- Marida (Season 1) was criticized during a Pressure Test by Chef Claudio for only sticking to Asian cuisine.
- Danny during his short time on Season 1 rarely strayed from Portuguese flavors.
- Jeremy (Season 3 & 7) would almost always cook Filipino dishes, though unlike other examples he wasn't called out on this.
- Determinator:
- In a Season 2 Pressure Test tasking the contestants with replicating a seafood mousse, Jennifer forgot to grab eggs from the pantry, a key ingredient in making mousse. After panicking for a bit, she decides to risk making a roux as a base for her moussenote . Although she didn't win the challenge, both the judges and the other contestants were very impressed by fact that she managed to make a great-tasting mousse without any eggs.
- Season 6's Josh had auditioned for every previous season before finally getting an apron. He would make it all the way up to Top 3.
- The Eeyore: Season 1's Eric. While he shows happiness whenever he does well, the rest of the time the look on his face is that of a scolded puppy.
- Emotionless Girl: Season 5's Beccy, who was both still a teenager and rarely showed any emotion other than cool calm. She also occasionally crossed this with Deadpan Snarker.
- Flawless Victory: Season 6's winner, Jennifer, is the only Masterchef Canada winner to have never placed in the bottom of a Pressure Test. In fact, they only participated in a single Pressure Test, which they won.
- From Bad to Worse: Kaegan's first elimination in Season 5 was a cavalcade of misfortune:
- First, he realizes too late that he forgot to add sugar to his cake batter, after he's already baked them. However, he finds a workaround by soaking his cakes in syrup.
- Then, he's not careful enough when holding his cakes and drops one of them on the floor.
- Finally, when he retrieves his remaining three cakes from the blast chiller, two of them have broken apart due to being so heavy with the syrup, leaving Kaegan with only a single-tier Black Forest cake.
- History Repeats: A few times on Back to Win:
- April Lee's Piña Colada dessert would once again begin to melt
- Dora was once again sent home on her beef cheek dish (even though her new dish was a considerable improvement)
- Andy and Thea, runners-up in their own seasons, would once again be beaten out for the top prize.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- After both David and Sabrina (as well as a few other contestants) had criticized Line for saving herself when she captained the losing team early in Season 2, they found themselves in Line's position after she beat both of their teams during another team challenge. Line points out that there's no way they could save themselves after they had called her out earlier, and indeed neither David nor Sabrina saved themselves.
- Also in Season 2, Cody gave up his immunity during a Pressure Test just so that he could work with black truffles. However, he wound up making one of the worst dishes of the night and landing in the bottom three.
- Honor Before Reason: During a head-to-head souffle-making challenge in Season 4, Alice accidentally contaminates her egg whites with yolk, making her unable to whip them with the electric whisk. Miranda, whose souffle is already in the oven, calms Alice down and shows her how to hand-whisk the whites, allowing Alice to make a successful souffle even though Miranda could've just left her and gotten a guaranteed win. Miranda would win anyway, but not before being praised for her sportsmanship.
- Hope Spot: Reem (Season 5) struggles initially with a Black Forest Cake replication, but manages to find a second wind, jump ahead of everyone else and present a good-looking cake, hopeful music and all... Until Chef Claudio checks the bottom of the cake and finds raw batter, and Reem winds up in the bottom two that night along with Kaegan.
- I'm Not Here to Make Friends: Both Dale (Season 1) and Kaegan (Season 5) say this almost word for word in their respective seasons.
- Motor Mouth: Season 2 has Jennifer, who admits during her audition that she talks a lot when she's nervous, often going on and on to the point of annoying some of the other competitors. However, during the poutine Team Challenge, the Green team turned this to their advantage by sending her out to advertise their poutine to the crowd, which helped them win by a narrow margin.
- My God, What Have I Done?: In a Season 4 basket-switch Pressure Test, Miranda gives Mai's basket (which contains shrimp) to Thea, not knowing that Thea is allergic to shellfish. She voices her regret in a confessional and then helps Thea de-vein her shrimp to make up for it.
- My Greatest Failure: The very first challenge of Back to Win put the contestants face-to-face with the worst dishes they cooked during their original season— oftentimes the one that sent them home— and had them create a new dish from it. These were:
- Andre's uni dish from Season 6, which was much too light on its star ingredient.
- Andrew (Season 2) saw a single poached egg; him overcooking his poached egg in Season 2's redemption challenge kept him from returning.
- Andy (Season 5) received his lobster dish from a budget vs. luxury Pressure Test, which had been ruined by a broth compared to seawater.
- April Lee (Season 3) was faced with her Piña Colada dessert, which had melted into slush and sent her home.
- Barrie's Wagyu beef from the Season 3 semifinals, which he had undercooked, leading to him being sent home despite having the advantage going into the cook.
- Christopher (Season 2) saw his ground pork Loco Moco, which was very dry and somewhat clumsily put together leading to his elimination
- Dora (Season 1) got her beef cheek stew, which Chef Claudio had compared visually to "barf" and was underseasoned to boot, sending her home.
- Jen (Season 5) received her Salisbury steak dish, which had sent her home.
- Jeremy (Season 3) got his monkfish soup, which was criticized by Chef Alvin for being too simple and not doing justice to the monkfish.
- Mai received her poached salmon dish from a Season 4 Mystery Box.
- Marissa (Season 5) received the entire Asian street food platter she had made with Nadia; the judges had faulted Marissa's lack of communication with her partner for the failure of the cook.
- Thea saw the pork belly and pork cheek tamale balls she had made in the Season 4 finale, which were overcooked. She bore the dubious distinction of being the only runner-up to receive one of their finale dishes.
- My Greatest Second Chance: Season 7, Back to Win, features previous contestants who fell short in their original seasons coming back for another shot at the Masterchef trophy.
- Nice Mean And In Between: In every season, Michael is Nice, Alvin is Mean and Claudio is In-between.
- Non-Gameplay Elimination: In Season 7, April Lee withdrew in between Episodes 2 and 3 due to a back injury, leading to Barrie (who had been eliminated in the previous episode) being brought back.
- Product Placement: Masterchef Canada loves its Alexander Keith beer and German-made Miele appliances. This is amped up a lot in Season 7 to the point that the winner and also the two runners-up also received a set of Miele kitchenware. Season 7 also made sure to mention its IKEA sustainable herb garden and how well a bottle of San Pellegrino mineral water paired with each dish.
- Tempting Fate: If a contestant is shown saying that they're confident about the upcoming challenge, expect them to screw up.
- Too Clever by Half: Season 1's Eric had this flaw sometimes, trying to be overly ambitious when he simply didn't have the time to execute it properly. The best example was a donut Pressure Test, where Eric decided to make eight different flavors of donuts because the Chinese character for eight also means "wealth." When his dozen donuts naturally came out inconsistent, Chef Alvin rebuked him by reminding him that while the number 8 could be read as "wealth", it could also be read as "greed."
- Whatthe Hellisthat Accent: Beccy's accent really confused viewers, since it didn't sound like a typical Canadian or Quebec accent and sounded more British. She later revealed that she grew up in rural England before moving to Canada, which is why her accent is so mixed.
