Nicole Gomes on elevating Calgary’s food scene and returning to Top Chef

As Nicole Gomes stations herself at a long steel prep table in her commercial catering space in Inglewood, she fishes for a spoon in her jacket pocket and tastes a batch of freshly made risotto. Checking to make sure it's been appropriately brightened with grated lemon zest, she hardly skips a beat and says, "This needs more!"

It's a small but illustrative example of how immersed the chef is in her successful namesake catering business, Nicole Gourmet.

That attention to detail has allowed Ms. Gomes to develop a culinary career that has spanned more than two decades, with her latest endeavour taking her to the finale of Top Chef Canada's fifth season. If she's successful on Sunday, she would be the first woman to win.

It's her second time on the show, which took a three-year hiatus before returning for an all-stars season that brought back 12 familiar faces from previous years. Ms. Gomes competed in the third season.

"Funnily enough, I didn't say yes at first," she says of the opportunity to try again. "The show is a whirlwind and I had to really consider if I wanted to go through the whole process again."

Ms. Gomes, who was born and raised in Richmond, B.C., finished culinary school in 1996 and has since worked all over the globe. Her kitchen experience ranges from brasseries and bistros in France to the Harbour Convention Centre in Sydney, Australia. Back home in Canada, she's worked at Vancouver's famed fine dining eatery, West, as well as Catch Restaurant and Oyster Bar in Calgary.

"I tried applying to work for David Hawksworth at West before I decided to travel to Australia and it was a hard no," recalls Ms. Gomes on being the first female chef to work in the kitchen there.

"Once I returned, I finally got into the kitchen because I knew the sous chef. … I remember David saying, 'Look, you've got to work for one month for free for a tryout.' So I did and officially came on staff. I learned so much there."

From there, she delved deep into the world of fine dining, with the same experience many young cooks face: long hours, high expectations, little pay.

Looking for a change, Ms. Gomes found her way to Calgary in 2002 and became one of the members of the opening team of Catch. Under the direction of Michael Noble, young chefs such as Duncan Ly, Nick Nutting, Matt Batey and Ms. Gomes worked together, helping the restaurant garner the accolade of being chosen the best new restaurant in the country in enRoute's inaugural Canada's Best New Restaurants awards.

After 2 1/2 years, Ms. Gomes left for a chance to serve as executive chef at the Italian restaurant Mercato, located south of Calgary's downtown. Now a staple of the Calgary food scene, Mercato got off to a good start thanks to Ms. Gomes's passion for Italian cuisine.

"I think they were a little shocked that a Chinese girl could cook Italian so well," she says with a laugh. "I loved the open concept here. Seeing people right in front you? That wasn't the kind of thing you really got to experience working in a kitchen back then."

In 2005, she made the decision to get out of the kitchen, albeit temporarily, to take a business course. She knew that being a business owner was in her near future, but the time still wasn't right.

"I had several investment offers, but I knew I wasn't ready. I was only 28," she says. "Catering was something I just happened to fall into. I was doing catering on the side to make money while I was in school and I would use this small commercial kitchen to prep. One day, I asked if they might want to sell it to me and they said yes! It was a business I could fund myself."

This past week, Nicole Gourmet celebrated its 11th year in business. She also owns the popular fried-chicken eatery, Cluck N Cleaver, with her sister, Francine, which opened in February, 2016. Ms. Gomes does see expansion for the concept on the horizon, though no official leases have been signed.

Winning Top Chef Canada certainly wouldn't hurt. The grand prize is $100,000 cash, as well as a professional kitchen.

Ms. Gomes has organized several charity viewing parties, two of which have already raised $25,000 for the Foothills Medical Centre's neonatal intensive care unit. She hopes to raise even more on Sunday night with an event for the finale at Home and Away on Calgary's 17th Avenue.

"Win or lose, on Monday, I am definitely taking a day off," she says. "I think I'll just take things as they come after that. Just day-by-day. Chefs are used to that kind of thing."