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The new season of Top Chef is here, and this year, the contestants are packing their knives and heading up north.
Season 22 of the hit Bravo series takes place across Canada this year, with 15 contestants competing for the $250,000 grand prize as they travel through cities like Toronto, Calgary, Montreal and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Officially titled Top Chef: Destination Canada, the show airs Thursday nights on Bravo, with episodes streaming on-demand on Peacock.
At a Glance: How to Watch Top Chef: Destination Canada
For returning judge Gail Simmons, the new season is particularly special, as much of it takes place in her hometown of Toronto. The TV star and author says the rising U.S.-Canada tensions stoked by President Donald Trump make it all the more important to promote and showcase what the country has to offer.
“As a Canadian, at this moment in our history and our relationship with America, I’m especially proud to be able to show off Canada in all its glory,” Simmons tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I think it’s going to give Canada its moment in the sun and it’s the perfect time for that.”
Simmons says Top Chef has always been about “seeing the world through the lens of food,” and she hopes this season will foster new perspectives about Canadian cuisine, but also about the country as a whole.
“I think Canada is especially nuanced because it feels like the States, and it kind of looks like the States, but to truly understand Canada, you really have to respect and be open to the fact that it is a totally different country,” she says, noting the country’s “completely different immigrant pathways and stories, and vibrant and powerful Indigenous community.”
“I think understanding the differences between us ultimately teaches us respect for one another and tolerance, and sort of gets us back to our humanity,” she adds, “especially at this moment [when] America loves to just clump us together. My hope is that Top Chef will allow us to explore Canada a little more richly and show the world how beautiful it is as a country and how extraordinary the ingredients are.”
How to Watch Top Chef Season 22 Online Free
Want to watch Top Chef: Destination Canada online? The show airs weekly on Bravo and you can livestream Top Chef with streamers like Fubo, DirecTV Stream and Hulu + Live TV, which all carry a live feed of Bravo. The sites let you watch Top Chef online without needing a cable subscription.
What we like: all three streaming services also offer free trials, so you can watch Top Chef live online for free. Fubo’s free trial includes free DVR, so you can record the episodes to watch back on-demand later. See full details here.
As mentioned earlier, you can also watch new episodes of Top Chef on Peacock, which will have season 22 episodes available for streaming on-demand the day after they air live on TV. Peacock doesn’t have a free trial but a monthly subscription costs just $7.99 and also includes access to other Bravo shows, live sports and thousands of TV series, movies and specials.
Top Chef Season 22: Judges, Contestants
In addition to Simmons, Tom Colicchio returns as a permanent judge and former contestant Kristen Kish returns for a second season as host (replacing Padma Lakshmi).
Fifteen contestants compete for a chance to win the grand prize, which includes $250,000, a feature in Food & Wine magazine and the opportunity to headline their own dinner at the James Beard House in New York. The winner also receives instant Delta SkyMiles Diamond Medallion Status and a $125,000 flight credit to spend on travel with Delta.
Colicchio tells THR that this was his “favorite season,” adding that “with this particular group, once we started eating the food, it was like, ‘Wow, this is wide open. Anyone can take this.’”
“With the level of the chefs [we had] there were probably nine that could have won,” he teases. “More often than not, people weren’t going home for making bad food — it was just the worse dish [that episode]. It wasn’t bad at all. And when you’re sending people off who are doing good food, now that’s a good season.”
Top Chef has now been on the air for two decades, an almost unheard-of number for a reality competition series. Along the way, the show has been nominated for a staggering 50 Emmy Awards, winning once in 2008 for outstanding picture editing for reality programming, and for outstanding reality competition program two years later.
As for why the show remains so popular, Kish says it’s about focusing on the contestants in the kitchen, rather than manufacturing drama. “These are real people who come from really great backgrounds and have restaurants and awards, and you’re taking the best of the best and then putting them into an arena which gets them to think differently and to push themselves,” she says. “It’s not just some flashy, drama-filled television show just for the sake of it.”
Simmons is more pragmatic: “Unlike a show where you can hear the music or see the fashion, you can’t taste the food as a viewer, and so the audience has to experience that dish through us. And so if you as the viewer don’t trust us, and think that we’re lying, being dramatic, not being authentic and not giving you the truth, then you’re going to turn the TV off.”
“Everybody recognizes that we all eat, we all have an opinion and we all connect through food,” she concludes, “and that’s really been the joy of being part of this show for so long.”
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