A young chef from Saskatoon has won her way to a spot competing at the 2023 Young Chef Culinary Challenge in Niagra.

Twenty-one-year-old Makenna Rai has been excelling in the kitchen since she was very young. She learned from her dad, who was a chef in Maryland, her mom, and her Baba.

When she got older, she then completed the commercial cooking program at Walter Murray Collegiate, worked in several Saskatoon restaurants, and also enrolled in Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s Culinary Arts Program.

Rai will be spending the next two months at Stoked Kitchen with Executive Chef Anthony McCarthy perfecting the dish she is choosing to prepare on June 5th in Niagra.

On June 5th she will be going head-head with six to eight other chefs while making duck breast, black current puree, and roasted baby carrots.