Since leaving her hometown in Veracruz, Mexico 15 years ago, Miriam Echeverria said she has had three primary life goals – move to Canada, become a Canadian citizen, and score herself a spot on TV with Top Chef Canada.
The 11th season of the long-running Food Network Canada show premieres Oct. 14 with Echeverria, until recently the executive chef at Dimensions Algonquin Highlands, one of 10 confirmed contestants. She’ll compete for national excellence in a series of gruelling culinary challenges, with the winner declared the country’s best chef and earning $100,000.
Echeverria, who specializes in French and Italian cuisine, said it’s been a surreal year. After celebrating her second anniversary with Dimensions last winter, she received an invitation to apply for Top Chef Canada and jumped on it.
“I was working in Toronto when the first season aired [in 2011], one of my good friends, Rob Rossi, was on it. He finished in second place, and I remember following the whole process – him being away for filming, then watching the show with him and the rest of the team once he was back, it was very inspiring,” Echeverria said.
She went on to have her first taste of TV a few years later, appearing on Chopped Canada, and while that experience helped to prepare her for the stress and pressure of cooking in front of a live camera, it was small fry compared to Top Chef.
Echeverria said she used her big opportunity to try and set an example for change in an industry renowned for brash personalities and toxic workplace culture.
“I was most excited to just show up, meet the other competitors, create new bonds and friendships – to me, that’s the important thing,” she said. “This is personal for me, but I wanted to show that as a chef you can also be human. A lot of time we normalize bad environments and abuse in the industry – I think you can be a great chef without having to minimize people.
“That was my contribution to the show, as well as my cooking. Just being positive and showing you don’t need a big ego to be in one of the best competitions. You can just be yourself,” she added.
Honing her skills at Toronto restaurants such as Greta Solomon’s, Lunita, and Mercatto, Echeverria said her approach to cooking is “very humble, not pretentious at all” and that she likes to showcase different vegetables. She said her time at Dimensions, where she would often forage the forest for mushrooms and other edibles, helped her on the show.
She left her position with the resort, located on Maple Lake, in June – returning home to Mexico to care for her ailing mother.
Echeverria visited this past weekend to say goodbye to a community and friends she says she’ll cherish for the rest of her life.
“It has been a blessing to be part of this community… Dimensions was like my own healing retreat too,” she said, noting prior to moving north from Toronto she was considering leaving the industry. “I’m now looking forward to getting back at it with a different mentality, with different skills as a chef that I learned by being in a place as welcoming, as full of nature as Haliburton.
“Now I can say I’ll always carry a piece of this community with me,” Echeverria concluded.
