Hole punch helps Ottawa chef win gold at culinary championships

Marc Lepine made history at aprestigious national culinary competition this weekend and he's got his trusty hole punch to thank.

Lepine, the head chef and owner of Atelier an Ottawa restaurant inspired by the art of molecular gastronomy became the first two-time gold medal winner Saturday night at the Canadian Culinary Championships in Kelowna, B.C.

"Honestly, I was very, very surprised this year," Lepine told CBC Ottawa's All In A Day after he got back to the city on Monday.

"We were going to be pretty happy if we just made it to the podium."

Lepine, his sous-chef, and the rest of the Atelier teambeat 10 other chefs with adish of smoked steelhead troutwith amiso-molasses glaze, cured pork belly, barley and corn porridge, andcorn cob broth.

It was his first time back at the championships since winning his first gold medalin 2012, as the competition requires winners to take a three-year break before being eligible to return, Lepine said.

Theteam won three different events during the two-day competition, includinga "black box challenge" which gave chefs an hourto create 14 different plates using seven mystery ingredients.

Despite his culinary pedigree, evenLepine was stymied byone of the ingredients.

"There was this weird kind of seaweed stuff I wasn't quite sure what it was, to be honest," Lepine said. "We just added that to our squid, made kind of a salad."

Hole punch was 'secret weapon'

Then there was the hole punch: one of their"secret weapons."

His team used the tool to transform black salsify, a root vegetable, into theirown unique creation.

"We took a vegetable peeler, and made thin shavings of it, and perforated it with the hole punch the wholeway down and then fried it. So we had these perforated chips in the end," Lepine said.

"It's all about details. Just a little bit of creativity, right? That's what they're looking for."

Listen to Marc Lepine'sAll In A Day interview here.