MasterChef Canada

Plot

• Skills Test: An immunity challenge where the home cooks observe and pay close attention to a judge demonstrating essential cooking skills before they must properly replicate their work. Those who succeed are safe from elimination up on the balcony while those who fail to properly replicate must face the Elimination Test, whereby they must make an elevated MasterChef worthy dish featuring that key ingredient.
• Mystery Box: An immunity challenge where the home cooks are all given a box with the exact same ingredients. They discover ingredients underneath and they must utilize only those to create a stunningly elevated, MasterChef worthy dish featuring said ingredient as the star of their dish within a fixed amount of time for a shot at immunity. Sometimes, a special guest may also appear to inspire the home cooks and will serve as a guest judge for this challenge before leaving. The judges will usually bring forward the top three dishes up to the judges' podium for tasting based on the beautiful plating, technique and sophistication alone to taste, and from those three select one winner who usually gains a number of advantages in the upcoming elimination test. They usually win immunity, automatically advancing forward in the competition and win a spot of safety up on the balcony, and have some sort of control over the elimination test, but in some cases, they do not win immunity and must also cook in the elimination challenge, as well as being given the chance to save a fellow competitor.
• Elimination Test: After the elimination challenge is explained, judges evaluate all dishes based on taste and visual appeal. Contestants who produce the best, winning dishes of the night are usually made team captains for next week's off-site field team challenge episode. The judges nominate the worst dishes for elimination, criticize them and single them out for elimination before eliminating at least one contestant.
• Team Challenge: The cooks arrive at an off-site location and are split into usually two teams by either the team captains or the judges. While contestants who perfectly nailed the skills test or produced the top-notch, best dishes in the previous elimination test are usually made team captains by the judges and get to pick their teams after a coin toss, sometimes the judges dictate and form the teams and their captains. The teams must create a fine restaurant meal for a group of VIP diners. Diners taste both meals and vote for their favorite. This similar challenge often occurs in the Restaurant Takeover or Pop-Up Restaurant challenge, taking the place of the staff of a particular restaurant. Although the client comment cards are taken into account, the judges ultimately decide the winning and losing team. The winning team advances forward in the competition, safe from elimination up on the balcony, while the losing team will participate in the Pressure Test.
• Pressure Test: Another form of the Elimination Test, in which the losing team members return to the kitchen the next morning after the field team challenge. After donning on their black aprons, they compete against each other for survival in a replication elimination challenge whereby they must perfectly replicate a very technical and difficult, professional, Michelin-starred dish, sweet or savory within a very limited amount of time that requires a great degree of cooking finesse. Sometimes before the test begins, the judges, the losing team captain, or even the winning team, can save at least one member of the losing team from this replication elimination test while in other cases, all members must participate and not one, but one or two contestants are sent home. Each dish is judged on taste, visual appeal and technique. Contestants who produced a flawless, well-executed replication are sent to safety up on the balcony, and the losing chefs are eliminated.

Judges and hosts

• Claudio Aprile, Uruguay-born, Canadian-raised chef and owner of Toronto restaurant Xango.
• Michael Bonacini, Welsh-born chef and co-owner of the O&B family of Toronto restaurants Jump, Canoe, Luma and Bannock.
• Alvin Leung, British-born, Canadian-raised chef of Hong Kong heritage and owner of Michelin-starred restaurants Bo Innovation in Hong Kong and Bo London in London, UK.

Episodes