Joining the 40-odd countries across the globe to have gained a MasterChef series on their home turf, Canada will air its inaugural episode this month.

One of the three topnotch judges selected to evaluate the fleet of home cooks who made it to the premier season was celebrity chef and celebrated restaurateur Michael Bonacini.

"We’re absolutely delighted and honoured to have [the show] here," he says enthusiastically. "I’ve been in the restaurant industry for years... I’ve seen a lot of chefs come and go... good dishes and bad ones... this was a chance to put that expertise to work."

Bonacini was flying back from Calgary to Toronto for auditions early last summer when weather re-routed his late-night flight to Ottawa.

"It was the day we were having those absolute terrible rain storms," he recalls. It was 5am the next morning when he finally arrived, no doubt tired, but still possessing the joie de vivre that would decide his role in Canada’s first MasterChef series.

Roughly six weeks later "I received a wonderful phone call." He was in, along with self-taught and Michelin-starred chef Alvin Leung, and Uruguayan-born, creative mastermind Claudio Aprile.

Bonacini calls the experience "quite unique and spectacular."

"No two days were ever the same," he describes.

Every episode involved the contestants taking on different ingredients, different individual and team challenges, hitting impressive highs and plummeting to upsetting defeats.

"The schedule was go, go, go, go," says Bonacini. "It was an enormous production; there were lots of things going on."

Contestants were made to attempt a slew of culinary feats – from home made breakfast cereal to camel meat.

"That gives you some sense of the spectrum that was presented to us," he posits.

Despite his lengthy career in the industry and worldly background, sampling camel was a first for even the seasoned Bonacini.

"I would have it again, that’s for sure," he says, describing the carne as having an "interesting texture to it...almost venison-like...fibrous."

As the challenges went on, the three judges were held in a constant suspense and sort of turmoil, trying to determine who was going to make it to the top ten or top five, or even top three. Their selections were in perpetual rotation, as one day a chef would triumph and the next create a complete flop.

"You get to see their strengths and their weaknesses," Bonacini says.  "You’re constantly mentoring them as you go by their stations."

He’s reminiscent of Tim Gunn, and indeed sports a similar charismatic candour. His voice is melodic, possessing the gentle accent of his upbringing in South Wales where his fine tastes in food were cultivated by a Northern Italian father and the running of a family-operated hotel business.

"My father did the cooking 99 per cent of the time and, if I’m honest, my mother was famous for her steamed broccoli," he gests playfully. "You could almost make a soup out of it."

Bonacini’s father cooked everything from traditional English food to a cornucopia of good northern Italian cuisine, often incorporating the abundant local protein, lamb.

Yet the owner of 11 upscale residents in Toronto and area craves a very simple dish when he comes home after a long day in the kitchen.

"One of my all time favourite meals to look forward to, that my wife cooks, so when I come home at the end of the night...and the room of the house if full of the smell of a whole roast chicken," he describes. "I think you’ll find that most chefs – when they’re not working – like to eat very humble, very straight forward things."

Serve this poulet with a potato side, and just a little pan gravy, and Bonacini is satiated.

On the set, however, Bonacini et al. was consistently pushing the potential master chefs to go further – enhancing presentation, diversifying their use of spice, and making them realize their full potential.

He says that while you do tend to root for one cook over the other, it is a constantly changing game; a game he is much happier to be on the judging side of.

"My days of competing in a competition like this are probably, maybe passed," he says. "In earlier years I got involved in all kinds of other cooking competitions, certainly when I was in Europe."

Bonacini describes driving to Frankfurt and Luxembourg to participate in live competitions.

"As a chef you’ve got to be thick skinned because everyone is a critic," he says. "Every guest, food critic, blogger – and rightly so. It keeps us on our toes; that’s for sure."

All three judges selected for MasterChef Canada have somehow managed to thrive in that highly competitive market, yielding whatever recipe caters to their critics.

The Oliver and Bonacini restaurants include Toronto’s Canoe and Auberge du Pommier, and later this year Bonacini aims to open the doors to his first restaurant in Calgary. Situated at the Hudson’s Bay Company on Stephen Ave, the eatery plots to offer a speakeasy scene on the lower level and a carnivore enthusiasts’ menu on the ground floor.

Though the concept is not totally cooked through, Bonacini says to think open flame charcoal, an emphasis on mountain food and an exceptional showcase of great Alberta beef.

Leung credits his structured upbringing in Scarborough, Ontario, by immigrant parents who pushed him to succeed, for his industry success. He co-owns the renowned restaurants Bo Innovation in Hong Kong and Bo London in England.

Leung is no stranger to TV. In 2011 he was the face of The Maverick Chef in Asia, and has also made guest appearances on Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, Top Chef Masters, The Hairy Bikers, and Rhodes Across China.

In addition to creating the ‘X-treme Chinese’ cuisine that has won him multiple Michelin stars, Leung has also cooked up a healthy food franchise called Beautified, serving sushi burritos and Asian inspired salads.

While some might define Leung’s character flavour as brash and sassy, Aprile emits a milder brand of spice. Like Leung and Bonacini, Aprile moved to Ontario from elsewhere in the world, and has cultivated his craft internationally.

His accolades abound: from a stint at Bali Sugar in London, England to the experimental cooking techniques he implemented into the kitchen of Toronto’s Sen5es.

Aprile is co-owner and creative head of the ever-expanding Orderfire Restaurant Group, which includes the three Origin locations situated in the Greater Toronto Area, delivering fresh, fast food directly from chef to eater a la open-style kitchen.

It is a wonder these busy chefs found the time to step from ‘pan into the fire’ as it were. But all three conveyed no less than absolute zeal.

"I think Toronto – Canada – is a great market for this kind of show," Bonacini says. "We’re all hoping it will go beyond just one season."

He says the premier run should reflect to viewers the truly eclectic melange of Canadian home cooks who, coming from globe scattered cultural backgrounds, bring to the table a unique blend of tastes and methods.

"Everyone watching will see and connect with that," he says. "Hopefully they will say to themselves... I want to get in on that action... and audition for next year."