Top -chef On the way to the big white north – and for the Gail Simmons born in Toronto, the 22nd season of the show was “an amazing return home”.

Simmons, who spoke to humans with people together with long -time judge Tom Colicchio and host Kristen Krist, describes the new season as “very Canadian”.

“It was a kind of these” worlds that “collided” moment of mine Top -chef Family and my actual, real family, like my brother, his children and my parents, are all hanging around in a room, which was pretty great, ”says Simmons.

“But just to see how much Canada has changed,” adds Simmons, who has been released on the Bravo hit since his first 2006 season. And I also think that the show has given the show as a new new feeling. ”

The trailer for the new episodes contains the nod in the poutine, but the stars of the show say that the kitschy dish could only be seen in One Quickfire Challenge.

“I don’t think I had a poutine all the time I was there,” admits Collicchio.

“It is a cliché for a certain reason,” says Simmons, who also serves as a guest editor of Food & wine‘S all-canada digital problem. “It is obviously a Canadian dish, but people outside of Canada talk much more about poutine than the people in Canada.”

While it is the first season of the culinary showdown in the north, it is Kish’s second as host. The former head test joined her new role last year after her 10 season.

Kish says she came with more confidence this season when her nervous energy “floated away”.

“I think I had to do a little work to feel less pressure,” she says. “And I think to go to the second season where I felt in solid foundations, it felt like my job.”

“I mean, the difference between her first working day and her last day is,” she explains. “On the first day they are afraid and nervous and want to meet expectations for themselves and other people in their surroundings. And then your second year at work, you just feel better. And I think that’s really. ”

This season, Bravo announced a further shock to the show: a new rule that puts “guardrails for over -claimed concepts” for the Fanites Restaurant Wars Challenge.

“One of the things that happens in restaurant wars is that you have to choose a leader,” says Simmons.

She adds: “What we have seen in this pattern because this dynamic in our restaurant teams is washed out and certain topics are created so that they can calm each other.”

According to Simmons, an example is the idea of ​​”global seafood”.

“Everyone can cook a piece of fish,” she says. “Then we can all do it as we all want to do it individually and we do not have to talk to each other and let it be connected. Things like these topics that occur every season as the simple way out for a team to work together. And we wanted to make their limits a little more and be a little more creative and actually communicate better. ”

This season there were other surprises for the judges – starting with the occupation of 15 chefs, whose talent Colicchio is described as “extraordinary”.

“It is often in half of the season, the whole meal looks the same because I think the chefs … try to adapt their food to what they want,” he says. “This season I felt that they had remained true to themselves throughout the season.”

Kish also stressed what impressed her about the culinary talent of this season.

“Your ability to form an idea, think about it through and through, a reason or a purpose and an actual direction in creating the food,” she explains. “And then stand there and tell you about it in this clear delivery.”

“I know that everyone has something to prove, everyone does it, but it really felt like they had to prove something in themselves,” she adds. “And at that moment it just felt like everyone was really present and available and ready to share so much of their stories.”

So what is the secret of thinking Top -chef Fresh after almost two decades? The judges say it is located in the changing locations of the series.

“Every season there is a completely new backdrop that determines the challenges that the ingredients that teach us about history, geography, terroir, culture and history,” says Simmons. “It’s just installed. There are no two places that are the same. We can make such a deep dive through the food of this place. ”

Colicchio agrees and adds: “I think we would be bored if we were a studio show. So it is great to shoot in a castle one day and the next day in a brewery, the next day you are in a vineyard.”