restaurant is open for a new season and the menu includes wonderful culinary proposals, but also initially “inedible” dishes that improve with the comments, a new cuisine and 12 new candidates aged 21 to 36.
“It’s been a really good season,” said chef Vincent Dion Lavallée, who also judges contestants’ proposals in the Zeste series, in an interview.
“Since it was our second year, we knew exactly what we needed to do to be there for the participants. [Avec Hélène Bourgeois Leclerc, sa coanimatrice], we had a chemistry, a complicity that was even more present and dynamic with the candidates. It was easier,” explained the co-owner of the Cabane d’à voir (with Martin Picard and Marc Beaudin) in Mirabel, emphasizing that the team behind the cameras also knew how to spice up the competition.
Hélène Bourgeois Leclerc and Vincent Dion Lavallée chat from behind with the 12 new participants in this second season of the Zeste cooking competition. Photo provided by Zeste
Today’s wines will be even more complex to prepare, although they continue to highlight Quebec’s terroir. For example, participants would have to prepare a forest-flavored mille-feuille with mushroom filling for dessert, the mentor chef warned.
And despite the high quality of the participants – some have notably worked in internationally renowned restaurants or in Michelin-starred restaurants – “there are dishes this year that I hated… but not in the edible category…” Vincent confessed Dion Lavallée, who nevertheless likes audacity and risky agreements.
“Sometimes it’s silly, just missing a little salt to balance the flavors or an ingredient to tie it all together… But it’s fun to see dishes that are inedible when you try them and become spectacular afterwards. The comments, with hindsight and with pleasure, “The desire of the candidates to prepare a good recipe is very important,” he then assured, emphasizing that we could even imagine that the candidate(s) who made these “inedible” dishes that served would win the competition.
The two-tier restaurant
The restaurant team left the large open Montreal kitchen at Hoogan et Beaufort and moved to the small closed kitchen at Théophile, an excellent wine bar in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, where a dichotomy would emerge over the weeks. between the calm of the dining room and the chaos of the kitchen.
“It creates a whole different tension when you see the whole rock side of cooking.” It feels like death metal is playing in the kitchen and Vivaldi is playing in the dining room. […] We really have two tempos, a bit like the last episode of the series The Bear,” introduced the chef, judge and mentor.
Rachel, 22, and Olivier, 21, are the two youngest contestants taking part in the second season of the show Le Restaurant. In the first episode they will compete against each other at the Grand Service. Photo provided by Zeste
Another new feature this season is that in the first four episodes, all contestants must complete the Grand Service to increase the pace and give everyone a chance to show off. They therefore all have a one in three chance of being eliminated on the first pass through the hatch. In the next round, the remaining candidates must first take part in the Creation Challenge in order to avoid returning to the Grand Service.
Filming for the second season ended this summer, in mid-June. The most serious candidates with a better-defined business plan are the ones who go the furthest in this $50,000 race, the front-runner stressed.
Hélène Bourgeois Leclerc and Vincent Dion Lavallée will again host the show Le Restaurant on Zeste this Thursday at 9 p.m.