
(Images: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)
UPDATE: Check out our recap of episode 1 »
With the sophomore season of Top Chef Canada set to premiere on March 12, Food Network Canada has finally introduced the 16 chefs hoping to cook their way to $100,000 (and, lest we forget, a GE Monogram kitchen). The group (which, perhaps responding to feedback about season one, is a tad more multicultural) once again contains six Torontonians, among them Marben’s Carl Heinrich and Ruby Watchco’s Ryan Gallagher. Tasting the food will be new host Lisa Ray, alongside head judge Mark McEwan and resident judge Shereen Arazm and a spate of guests that includes culinary personalities (Top Chef Masters winner Marcus Samuelsson) and sundry celebrities (handyman Mike Holmes, actor Alan Thicke, Kenny vs. Spenny’s Spencer Rice). We round up the Toronto contestants, starting with Victor’s David Chrystian »


The latest in the city’s rash of new hotels is a second location of Le Germain, this one at Maple Leaf Square. The boîte brings Euro chic to the $500-million Maple Leaf complex, a fandom sanctuary of sporty condos, bars and retail slipped into the no-man’s land between the waterfront and the downtown core. 