Since Top Chef premiered, it has become one of the best reality shows by a wide margin for many reasons. For example, Top Chef has introduced memorable chefs, there have been great competitors who were robbed, and the show’s fans can’t get enough. That said, Top Chef can also be forgettable, it has had winners fans didn’t like, chefs have gone from loved to hated, and there have been bad guest judges.

Even though many fans don’t like it when Top Chef seems negative, like when there were mean challenges, it seems like that is necessary. While looking at Top Chef: Destination Canada, it seems clear that the show’s latest season needs some tough love.

Why Top Chef: Destination Canada Needs Some Tough Love

During Top Chef’s early seasons, the competition wasn’t that fierce. While the show could be mean back then, as evidenced by a chef being assaulted and having his hair cut, really talented chefs were assured to succeed.

These days, however, Top Chef has arguably become one of the hardest reality shows to win on television. After all, the show now casts a slew of award-winning chefs each season who already have impressive reputations.

With that in mind, it should go without saying that Top Chef needs to be a great enough show to be worthy of such impressive competitors. However, even though there have only been a handful of episodes of the season so far, it certainly seems like the team behind Top Chef: Destination Canada needs some tough love.

In some ways, Top Chef: Destination Canada is a truly impressive feat of television production. For example, Top Chef’s crew remains as talented as ever since they continue to film the food in ways that really makes the cuisine come alive for viewers.

However, the truth is that Top Chef: Destination Canada seems to be falling short in terms of taking advantage of its location and title.

Top Chef: Destination Canada Isn’t Taking Advantage Of Its Location So Far

Throughout the history of Top Chef, the show has traveled the world to a slew of different locales. That has been one of the things that makes Top Chef great for several different reasons.

Now that the first few episodes of Top Chef: Destination Canada have aired, however, it feels like the season is falling short of its location.

In March 2025, CBC published an article asking whether Top Chef: Destination Canada would do a good job showing off Canadian cuisine. While there is still hope that will happen, the way Canadian food has been portrayed so far during Top Chef: Destination Canada has been quite lame.

During one of the season’s Quickfire Challenges, the chefs were asked to create their versions of a poutine. Considering that dish is so closely associated with Canada, showcasing poutine like that seemed like a no-brainer.

While that was a welcome Quickfire Challenge, things got pretty ridiculous from there. For example, when a hockey player was a guest judge, the chefs were instructed to make dishes that were…. cold. While Candians take pride in being able to cope with cold weather, that challenge was far from the representation of Canadian cuisine the CBC was hoping for.

Speaking of Top Chef: Destination Canada’s guest judges, they also have been pretty ridiculous so far.

When the aforementioned hockey player was a guest judge on Top Chef: Destination Canada, things quickly became extremely cringe-inducing. The reason for that was that the episode used a series of “hockey terms” to inform the kinds of dishes the chefs had to make.

While that theme could have worked in theory, the problem was that the so-called “hockey terms” seemingly were completely made up. A post on the r/TopChef subreddit referred to the so-called hockey terms as “fictional.” At the very least, if there was any reality to the terms, they are far from commonly known even in Canada.

Another problematic Top Chef: Destination Canada guest judge is Sarah Levy. One of the stars of Schitt’s Creek, when Gail introduced Sarah, she spoke about how beloved that show is in Canada. To Gail’s point, Schitt’s Creek has a lot of fans in Canada, and Sarah was a welcome Quickfire guest judge.

The problem is that Sarah stuck around long after the Quickfire challenge. In fact, Sarah sat at the Judges Table after the Elimination Challenge. As wonderful as Sarah seems to be as a human being, she seemed completely out of her depth commenting on the results of the Elimination Challenge.

How Top Chef: Destination Canada’s Attempt To Add Some Secret Canadian Chefs To The Competition Flopped

After Top Chef: Destination Canada’s first Elimination Challenge, Last Chance Kitchen started. The reason why Last Chance Kitchen could start so soon was that two Canadian chefs were given the chance to join the main show through the secondary competition.

First off, one of the Canadian Last Chance Kitchen chefs was eliminated after the very first challenge, and they didn’t get a second chance.

Then, the other Canadian Last Chance Kitchen chef quit the competition without much of an explanation aside from saying it wasn’t for them. All things considered, Last Chance Kitchen became yet another example of the show failing to add compelling Canadian content to the season.

Of course, there have only been a handful of Top Chef: Destination Canada episodes that have aired so far and things could easily become better. That said, any show that is competing for ratings should put its best foot forward.

With that in mind, the team behind Top Chef: Destination Canada needs to do a better job of taking advantage of its locale during future seasons’ early episodes. Or to put things another way, the Top Chef team needs some tough love about how Top Chef: Destination Canada has been so far, so they will do better in the future.