What to know
- Come Dine With Me Canada debuts this fall on Food Network, bringing together five amateur chefs who each host a dinner party and score one another for a cash prize.
- Toronto contestants Kojenwa Moitt and Jack Showers say the fast-paced competition pushed their hosting skills, creativity, and ability to stay calm under pressure.
- Despite the hectic environment, both describe the experience as a summer highlight, forming unexpected friendships and memorable moments with fellow contestants.
- The series will feature groups from across Canada, with holiday-themed episodes airing Dec. 18 for viewers seeking festive menu inspiration.
What’s better than hosting a dinner party? How about winning a grand cash prize for it?! That’s the premise of Come Dine With Me Canada, a new reality-competition show airing this fall on The Food Network.
The competition brings together five amateur chefs, each hosting a dinner party. The judges will rate dishes and the hosts’ overall hospitality, and the contestant with the highest score will win a cash prize.
Kojenwa Moitt and Jack Showers are two Toronto locals who are serving up fun and (hopefully) delicious food on the show, and although the competition is fierce, they say they’re both there to win.
@nowtoronto Check out Come Dine With Me Canada, a new reality-competition show airing this fall on The Food Network. #TheFoodNetwork #ComeDineWithMeCanada ♬ original sound – Now Toronto
“I have to say that I’ve always been a great host, people know this about me. It’s part of my brand, my personal brand,” Moitt said.
Showers says he also enjoys hosting for his friends and family, and although he isn’t used to doing it for a cash prize, he wasted no time putting his game hat on.
“Preparing for it was crazy. I think what I wanted to do was make sure that everything I was serving was kind of just for the show,” he said. “My approach was to make sure I had a theme. The food was in line with the theme, and all the food was kind of created for the show.”
Once the competition started, both say the environment got fast paced, which changed how they normally would host a dinner.
“You don’t really have time to get into the nitty gritty of someone’s story while you’re preparing dinner at the same time,” Moitt said. “The focus is always essentially on the food, that is the star.”
Showers, who is the first contestant in his group to host, says he also felt the pressure.
“It’s impossible to host in this environment. You’re being pulled to the kitchen, then back to the table, and then back to the kitchen and back to the table,” he said.
But despite the high stakes, they both say partaking in the competition was a summer highlight, and they both walked away with new memories and even friendships.
“I think they casted it really well, so I think it kind of flowed naturally with different personalities, and everyone had a pretty good sense of humour and had their own quirks, which complemented each other,” Showers said.
“That’s what makes it funny, you throw a set of people into a room. They may not have met each other in real life but suddenly they’re bonded by this really cool experience forever,” Moitt said.
The competition series will launch on Nov. 27, and while Moitte and Showers represent a Toronto group of amateur chefs, this new series will be shot from coast-to-coast showcasing all of Canada’s amateur culinary talents.
For viewers who are in need of a Christmas-themed menu this year, you can catch the show’s holiday themed episodes on Dec. 18.
