P.E.I. chef Ilona Daniel brings Island flavours to Top Chef U.S. as guest judge

When P.E.I. chef Ilona Daniel was just starting out in the culinary world a number of years ago, she often tuned into the American reality competition series Top Chef.

She liked watching how the competitors handled the intense time pressure of television and learning from their techniques.

"I've always been a fan of telling stories. I've always loved doing media, whether it's on the radio or whether it's television. So just kind of it was almost like studying it. It was almost like it was a class for me," Daniel told CBC's Mainstreet P.E.I.

Fast forward to last year, Daniel, now a well-known Island chef and instructor at Holland College, was checking her email when she noticed a message from someone who introduced themselves as a producer with Top Chef U.S.

Season 22 of the popular Bravo series, called Top Chef: Destination Canada, was planning to explore Canada's cuisine.

At first, Daniel thought the email was spam. But after a quick Google search, she realized it was the real deal.

"This is the real guy. And I'm like, 'Oh my goodness, absolutely, yes, please, let's talk ASAP.'"

In September, Daniel headed to Toronto to film the episode, which finally aired on Thursday this week.

"It's kind of surreal and a dream come true," Daniel said. "It's a big deal. But for me, what's more important is the idea of making sure that P.E.I. is proud because P.E.I. has given me so much."

In the episode, Daniel served as the guest judge for the Quickfire Challenge, bringing a special ingredient from the Island: P.E.I. mussels. The chefs had to quickly make a dish using these mussels within a limited amount of time.

"I think people were really intrigued about P.E.I. I talked a lot about this ingredient and how important it is and the share it has in the marketplace, internationally and nationally," she said.

Daniel remembers walking onto the set and being amazed by the scale of the production.

"It's not a very slim crew. You've got people who are your stylists, people who are looking after each judge. There's a lot of moving pieces, and you have a chef that's cooking for the crew. There's also people who are managing the ingredients on the show. So there's a lot of food-related things that are happening," she said.

"I've done a lot of different media pieces, different TV things, over the years, but this is on a scale that's, you know, quite impressive."