A Toronto chef is the winner of this season of Top Chef Canada
Congratulations, Coulson Armstrong
In a heated restaurant war against Five Sails’ highly decorated Vancouver chef, Alex Kim, Toronto’s Coulson Armstrong—executive chef of Prime Seafood Palace, culinary director of Our House Hospitality and Matty Matheson’s right-hand man—was declared the winner of this season of Top Chef Canada. His winning lineup featured a bright scallop crudo, pasta and a signature PSP dish: a maple tart crowned with a lumberjack-sized scoop of Délice de Bourgogne, a deliciously creamy cow’s milk cheese.
“I figured out what the judges were after when I lost one of the midway competitions,” Armstrong says. “I tasted my competitor Shai-Ann Tyson’s oxtail and realized it was better than mine. She’d cooked it overnight—slow, steady and with soul. That’s when it clicked: the judges didn’t just want us to be clever. They wanted to taste time, care and precision.”
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But Armstrong was never under the impression that he had the competition locked. “After the final cook, the judges were raving about all of Alex’s dishes,” he says. “The only thing Janet Zuccarini said to me was that my pasta was al dente. I was convinced I’d lost.”
Despite getting in his own head, Armstrong—who learned his wife was pregnant with their second child during the show’s filming—ultimately clinched the victory.
“The stress of being on the show was high,” he says, “but it was nothing compared to my wife taking care of a toddler alone for a whole month while also dealing with a new pregnancy. She’s getting the car I won.”
Related: Matty Matheson is opening a 9,500-square-foot restaurant in Hamilton
With Iron Cow—Matty Matheson’s newest project—set to open inside the Hamilton Arena on December 8, Armstrong has no choice but to stay humble. “In life, when one really good thing happens, something equally tough usually follows,” he says. “There are no promises in this industry—you have to work your butt off every single day or you fail. You take the victories with a grain of salt, shake off yesterday’s mistakes and prove yourself today.”
Erin Hershberg is a freelance writer with nearly two decades of experience in the lifestyle sector. She currently lives in downtown Toronto with her husband and two children.
