The Gold Medal Plates is “the ultimate celebration of Canadian excellence in cuisine.” Eleven cities in Canada round up their finest chefs to square off for gold, silver, and bronze medals. The regional winners then go on to compete in a national Canadian Culinary Competition.

The annual event is a fundraiser for Canadian Olympic hopefuls, aiming to participate in the next Olympics. Last year’s competition was won by chef Mark McCrowe who was a co-judge this year, alongside Karl Wells, Bob Arniel (Chef to Go), Nicholas Gardner (food writer), & Peter Gard (caterer and critic).

“It is one of the happiest of all life’s coincidences that Gold Medal Plates St. John’s almost always takes place on my birthday,” says Gold Medal Plates’ James Chatto. “Gastronomically, standards were as high as I can remember in this city that has become famous across Canada as a culinary destination.”

This year’s gold medal winner was Roger Andrews of Relish, and it’s the second time he has won. Andrews also won an episode of Chopped Canada this year. Chatto says his dish was “elegant to look at and heaven to eat.”

He won it with a “rectangular slice of a trembling, moussy, honey-coloured sea urchin bavarian, its uni flavour perfectly judged.” It was topped with  a teaspoonful of Acadian sturgeon caviar, and a curl of crisp shallot toast. “A clever play on the usual egg-and-onion accompaniments of a traditional caviar service.”

Silver went to Roary MacPherson of Oppidan, for his local lamb dish, and Blue on Water’s Adam Grevatt took bronze, for his “unctuously fatty pork jowl sandwiched between slim layers of toasted citrus brioche.”