If you haven’t seen the finale of Canada’s Top Chef, stop reading right now :)

Cactus Club Cafe held a Top Chef Finale viewing party at their Coal Harbour location this Monday. Located in the Jack Poole Plaza across from the Olympic Cauldron and the Vancouver Convention Centre, this location offers guests a unique dining experience with panoramic views of the North Shore Mountains and Stanley Park.

One of the finalists was Cactus Club’s own Matthew Stowe. Originally from Cloverdale, BC, Chef Stowe has been working at Cactus as a product development chef and competed against 16 chefs from across the country. He was there with us as we watched the show together.

Cactus’ hospitality is superb. The event was catered with some of their signature dishes such as Rob’s Goat Cheese Flatbreads, Spicy Chicken Bites, and Tuna Tataki.

For the main event, we were served dishes by Chef Stowe himself – we started with a curry cauliflower soup with dried apricots, currants and toasted almonds. This dish was featured on episode five of Top Chef

Following our delicious soup, we had the Maple Leaf Slider – maple pork patty, bacon and Rickards beer jam, with apple slaw on a challah bun – this was my fav dish of the night. So flavourful and the pork was super tender.

For dessert, we had the roasted banana and coconut tapioca with tropical fruits and macadamia nut crumble. This dessert was so good, I had two :)

After a food truck challenge and a judge’s dinner that included singer/songwriter Jann Arden, Chef Stowe was crowned Canada’s new Top Chef!

Congratulations Chef Matthew Stowe on winning Top Chef Canada!