Music: {allcanada} Carl Heinrich wins Top Chef Canada

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

{allcanada} Carl Heinrich wins Top Chef Canada

Call it the Heinrich Manoeuvre.

Carl Heinrich, who currently lives in Toronto but originally is from Sooke, B.C., was crowned champion for the second season of Top Chef Canada Monday night in a 90-minute finale on Food Network Canada.

When Heinrich was offered congratulations in a phone interview, he replied with a breathless "Thanks," as if he still couldn't quite believe it.

"There are lots of things that factor into the win," said Heinrich, 26. "There definitely is a little bit of luck there. At some points I got lucky.

"You're never as well-rounded a chef as you'd like to be, right? So there could have been a challenge along the way where I just bombed and I could have been kicked off. I think a couple of the chefs that were eliminated sort of fell to that.

"The challenges we had, for the most part, were do-able for my skill set. So there was luck, combined with technique and perseverance, which kind of stuck it out and won it in the end."

Heinrich, who is working on opening his own restaurant in Toronto, is the former executive chef of Toronto's Marben restaurant. He has been working in kitchens since he was 13, in far-reaching places such as New York, Vancouver, France and Monaco.

Asked how winning Top Chef Canada might change his life, Heinrich said, "It's going to help fill seats in the restaurant, there's no doubt about that.

"It gets my name out there, so it certainly helps my career. And it opens the doors for, what if I want to write a cookbook one day, or if I want to have my own TV show one day. There are very few negatives."

So what was the hardest part about competing on Top Chef Canada?

"It's tough to prepare a dish, knowing it's going to be judged," Heinrich said.

"Sitting in that room, just tearing apart your own dish in your brain, it's mentally tough, more than the challenge of cooking."

Top Chef Canada already has been renewed for a third season.