No stranger to cooking competitions, Cree chef Shane Chartrand says Top Chef Canada is the real deal

The new season of Top Chef Canada is launching later this month and for one Cree chef being asked to compete was "a dream come true."

Shane Chartrand from Enoch Cree Nation near Edmonton is no stranger to cooking competition shows, having been on Chopped Canada and Iron Chef Canada, but says Top Chef Canada is "the real deal." 

"If you think you can do a show like this, be prepared," said Chartrand.

"Being a great cook is obviously why we're chosen … you've got to have the grit, [and] confidence."

Chartrand, the fifth Indigenous chef to compete on the show, said he wants to showcase as much of his Cree culture as he can.

"The past 12 years I've been working very hard at trying to extend what Indigenous culinary arts is in the celebratory way, in the spiritual way and … on the plate," said Chartrand. 

"I thought it was really important to be able to bring all those touchstones of information to national TV because there's a lot of people who don't understand who we are." 

Chartrand is the executive chef at Nehiyaw Cuisine, and in 2019 he published his first cookbook, tawâw: Progressive Indigenous Cuisine. 

A chef's competition

One person that knows just how grueling Top Chef Canada can be is Tawnya Brant, a Mohawk chef from Six Nations of the Grand River near Hamilton. 

She said when she competed on season 10, she initially thought her time on the show would be the relaxing break she needed after having just opened her restaurant Yawékon Foods months before.

"Top Chef is the hardest television show to do, because you don't know what you're doing," said Brant.

"A lot of the other cooking competition shows, they already know what they're doing, it's just a matter of executing in a certain amount of time."

She said she was ecstatic when she found out Chartrand was competing this season. 

"Honestly there's two chefs in Canada, maybe three, that I was like 'They need to go on this show; why haven't they yet?' And Shane is one of them," said Brant. 

Brant said before the show she was never a competitive chef, and she thinks this is where Chartrand may have the upper hand. 

"He knows how to do high-end food, because he's an amazing plating artist and because he already has a whole cookbook to go on," said Brant.

From dishwasher to chef 

Chartrand said his interest in cooking started when he got his first kitchen job as a teenager. He had been eyeing a pair of Air Jordan shoes and his mom told him he needed to earn enough money to buy them himself.

"I rode my bike all the way down to the closest place that had jobs and so I became the dishwasher at a legitimate truck stop," said Chartrand. 

"I saw the other guys were cooking and making awesome food … all that noise in the kitchen was what I wanted, that's what inspired me." 

Now, Chartrand teaches cooking to kids, and hopes to inspire Indigenous kids interested in pursuing a culinary career. He said one of the reasons he aspired to be on Top Chef Canada was to be the example he always wanted to see on television when he was a kid. 

"I don't care where they are, who they are, what skin colour they have, just mentorship is super important," said Chartrand. 

When asked what's the one dish he's excited to share with Canadians, he says it's deep-fried reindeer lichen. 

"The reindeer moss is edible moss, and if you clean it, dry it, deep fry it — it becomes very, very delicate but with this really awesome flavour," he said.

"You just hit it with salt and honestly, it's delicious."

Top Chef Canada season 11 begins Oct. 14 on Food Network Canada.