Haan Palcu-Chang’s jump to the small screen has Salt Spring Island’s food lovers cheering at their televisions, as the local chef is appearing on the now-airing latest season of Food Network’s Top Chef Canada.
Reached at home on-island, Palcu-Chang was appropriately coy about the remaining episodes. The first aired last week, and he said –– without giving anything away –– he was confident he “did the island proud.”
“It was really intense,” said Palcu-Chang, “but really gratifying. I’m super glad I did it.”
The Toronto-born Taiwanese-Romanian chef said he brought his best effort to the program, which again this year gathered 10 of Canada’s top culinary talents from Tofino to Halifax under bright television lights and the pressure pot of competition.
The Michelin-star trained Palcu-Chang came to the show –– as he did to Salt Spring –– from a background cooking in some of the most celebrated kitchens around the globe. And despite a shift to island life, where he mostly consults and caters –– and holds one of the most in-demand culinary workshops to ever fold dumplings at the SIMS kitchen –– the call of the Top Chef challenge was impossible to ignore.
“I’d never done TV before,” said Palcu-Chang, “and I thought the worst that could happen is I get to see the ‘TV cooking’ side of the industry.”
With his experience, and his breakout success on social media, Palcu-Chang said he felt prepared for the professional side of the show. Leveraging his skills to showcase a repertoire of flavours from Romania and Taiwan, he said he was comfortable around his competitors. They’re a high-talent group, he admitted, but pretty agreeable. In fact, he said, the production team told them they were probably the friendliest season of the show since its inception, and Palcu-Chang agreed it felt like everyone was competing against themselves more than each other.
Then the cameras turned on, and taping began.
“It’s a serious production,” said Palcu-Chang. “And then you’re seeing all these people that you see on TV in person. It’s odd for sure.”
Palcu-Chang said there were easily more than 100 crew members making things happen on-set; he quickly adapted to the routine, he said, thinking on the fly and developing a plan in the moment for each challenge.
“You figure out what you’re going to do about five minutes before,” he said. “And you have no team to back you up like you would in a professional kitchen. I just kind of had the mentality of, you know, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity –– you’ve got to just roll with the punches and figure stuff out.”
The most pleasant surprise, he said, was that the drama he’d seen on the show before arriving was “real” –– that is, driven by the competition itself, not manufactured for its own sake or from behind-the-scenes personality conflicts.
“Yeah, it’s just legitimately hard,” laughed Palcu-Chang. “The drama really is in the cooking; it’s so intense that you didn’t really need anything extra.”
Despite a slight concern he might regret saying “yes” to the show –– or “make a complete ass of myself on national television” –– Palcu-Chang said the experience was a good one, and he enjoyed making new connections with professionals from across Canada.
“Everybody there was highly competitive in their own ways, but I don’t feel like it came out in a way that was super combative with the other contestants,” said Palcu-Chang. “We all got along really well. And I decided I would just be myself and not try to be anything else, because that’s worked for me.”
Top Chef Canada’s remaining episodes air Mondays on Food Network Canada. To keep up with Palcu-Chang’s culinary journey and find upcoming workshops on Salt Spring, visit him on Instagram (@haanpc) and at haanpc.com.