Canadian chef aims to wow judges at international competition in France

Canadian Press Camille Bains, The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER - When Ryan Stone hits the stage at a convention centre in Lyon, France, he'll be entering what can only be described as the Olympics of the culinary world. "It's life-consuming," Stone says of the preparation involved in representing Canada in the glitzy Bocuse d'Or competition involving chefs from 24 countries.

Top food wizards from Argentina to Uruguay will vie for a prestigious trophy and 35,000 euros as they turn up the heat to prepare lamb and fish dishes in 5-1/2 hours on Jan. 25 and 26. A team of 12 chefs will compete each day, with Stone going head to head with his rivals on the second day of the event that will take place in a stadium-like setting. Stone says the atmosphere will be electric as 8,000 spectators watch the chefs' every move in the knock-down, drag-out event that's been held every two years since 1987.

"I compare it to watching a playoff hockey game and a rock concert combined," he says. "People who are watching are really loud, they've got music pumping through the speakers there and two MCs. It's crazy." Stone was selected in 2008 to represent Canada at this year's Bocuse d'Or from among five chefs at a competition in Montreal where he cooked up two winning dishes including a black cod and lobster combo rolled together with a scallop mousse made of chives, parsley, tarragon and truffles.

Stone, 28, has been working his way toward entering the Bocuse d'Or since 1999 when he watched a video of the event in a high school cooking class in Maple Ridge, B.C. That year at age 16, he went to Germany, where he worked in a restaurant six days a week, 11 hours a day as he honed his passion for creating culinary delights. Now, the chef, who credits his mother and grandmother for inspiring him in the kitchen, is ready for the biggest league in cooking competitions.

Stone's eight-member team includes a manager who has secured sponsorships, liaised with organizers in Lyon and helped launch fundraisers that will net about $350,000 to compete at the show.

He says the two large silver platters that will display his lamb and fish creations cost about $40,000, and the rest of the cash will go toward everything from air fare to all that lamb and fish he's been cooking up over and over again for months. Stone's first taste of the Bocuse d'Or, named after founding chef Paul Bocuse, came in 2003, when he was among the thousands of people who watched the competition from the bleachers. Two years later, he participated as an apprentice for the Canadian chef and then went back in 2007 to observe another chef who is now his coach.

"It's intense," Stone says of the controlled chaos that ensues in the 12 side-by-side kitchens where chefs are considered celebrities. Last February, the 24 competitors for this year's Bocuse d'Or received word about which type of meat and fish they'd be cooking — saddle of lamb, which includes both sides of the loin with the backbone still attached, along with monkfish, Scottish brown crab and langoustine, which is similar to baby lobster. Stone will cook the lamb with portobello mushrooms and wrap it in a skin of rosemary, parsley, tarragon and mustard before roasting it and glazing it with aged red wine vinegar.

The lamb platter will be adorned with golden beets filled with eggplant, apple and pine nuts.Stone has cooked the lamb 400 times so far, perfecting it as the executive chef at a restaurant in Haida Gwaii on British Columbia's north coast, where he works during the summer season. As for the monkfish, Stone will brine it with birch syrup before wrapping it with a kulen sausage — similar to chorizo — and then display it in a custom-made glass tube.

The langoustine will be poached in olive oil and espelette chili pepper and perched atop a warm tomato gel. Stone will bind the shredded, cooked Scottish brown crab meat with scallop mousse in a mould with dashi custard, a Japanese broth used to make miso soup. The fish platter will include a pea and bacon tart along with a cauliflower and caviar mousse.After finishing up the season at the restaurant last September, Stone and his team have been doing a weekly practice run of what will be expected at the Bocuse d'Or during the 5-1/2 hours they have to pull off a win for Canada. Last week, the sleep-deprived team packed up their equipment and some ingredients to take to the showdown, where all the chefs will be provided with the meat and fish they'll be presenting on two platters.

The only ingredients they'll be allowed to bring are the vegetables — peeled but not cut — stock, unfinished sauces and basic doughs. Canadian chefs have never placed in the top three at the Bocuse d'Or, but neither have those from the United States, Stone points out. "The best we've placed is fourth, and the best that the States has placed is fifth. We've pretty well always placed in the top 10."

This year, the country to watch is Denmark, Stone says."This will be the chef's third time competing in France, and he won the European selection competition to qualify. The last time around it was the chef that won the European selection that also won the final.

"I'm in a very good spot where I'm in the very next kitchen after him so I get the chance to have my food tasted side by side with the guy who's on everyone's radar