Manitoba students win national culinary title in Montreal
Five high school teams competed Sunday at a national cooking competition hosted by chef Ricardo Larrivée. Manitoba's École Polyvalente La Samare advances to Paris.
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Five teams of high school students faced off Sunday at La Tablée des Chefs' National Final, a national cooking competition held in Montreal and hosted by Ricardo Larrivée, the celebrity chef known simply as Ricardo.
Ecole Polyvalente La Samare from Manitoba took the national title, earning a trip to Paris later this month to compete against France's champion team in an international final.
More than a hundred teams of students aged 12 to 17 participated in Culinary Brigades competitions across Canada this year. The program tests problem-solving and kitchen fundamentals — teams face mystery ingredients and must work under pressure to build dishes that impress judges.
Ricardo, founder of Ricardo Media and a 20-year spokesperson for La Tablée des Chefs, emphasized the program's real-world value. "The beauty with school and cooking is that you don't have to be a chef in your life, but you will cook for the rest of your life," he said. "If you know how to feed yourself and your friends and your family, you'll have a better life, you'll be healthier."
Aidan Jusoh, 11, from École secondaire Félix-Leclerc, described the intensity: "My heart was beating very fast. It was nerve-wracking, but once I got to cooking it really just released."
Jean-François Archambault, executive director and founder of La Tablée des Chefs, sees the program's growth as proof that food literacy changes lives. "There's more than 350 public high schools in this country. We want to scale this program across the country," he said. The organization is actively seeking partners to bring the program into more schools.