Meet the Toronto cook slated to be MasterChef Canada's youngest competitor
Every year for over a decade, CTV's MasterChef Canada has brought burgeoning home cooks from across the nation together under one roof to compete for culinary glory. For Aliyaan Amlani Kurji, a Toronto-based cook set to compete on the show's ninth season, the opportunity to show his culinary chops is the culmination of a lifelong dream.
A life, granted, that hasn't been all that long. At just 23 years old, Aliyaan is the youngest competitor on the season, and among the youngest to compete on the series, former champions of which include Mary Berg and aKin chef Eric Chong, at all.
"I definitely felt a lot of imposter syndrome," Aliyaan tells blogTO, "like yeah, I'm 23, but I've also only been cooking for like five or six years, and I'm competing against people who've been cooking for 30-plus years, so I felt like I definitely felt like I was a bit of a fish out of water."
Still, Aliyaan was well-primed for the challenge.
Born in Toronto before spending his early childhood in Kuwait and returning to Toronto in his early teenage years, Aliyaan grew up on MasterChef Australia ("that's what they played when I was in the Middle East"), staying up until the wee hours of the morning to devour the latest episodes as soon as they dropped.
His grandmother, whom he calls nani, was also a chef, so he attributes his "foodie genes" to her and considers her one of his primary inspirations in the kitchen, though he laments not having the opportunity to learn more about cooking directly from her.
It wasn't until the Covid-19 pandemic that Aliyaan actually began to experiment in the kitchen, though.
"All of a sudden, I had so much time on my hands, and I was bored out of my mind. So I'm like, 'Hey, let me do something cool. Let me try learning something,' so I started learning how to cook," Aliyaan explains.
A content creator both on his personal pages and for larger companies by trade, he documented the process on his cooking account, @bitesbyaliyaan, and was surprised to find that a few of his videos quickly took off.
"I had the absolute time of my life, working on that blog, making content about food, learning how to cook, experimenting, being creative in that space, and yeah, it's kind of stuck," he laughs.
When he stumbled upon the casting call for MasterChef Canada season 9 online, it felt like a no-brainer, he tells blogTO. But that doesn't mean he was actually prepared to get the call offering him a spot in the competition.
"This is something I've been dreaming of since I was like seven years old, and so to have then gone through the application process and gotten my acceptance was honestly one of the most surreal moments of my entire life," Aliyaan says. "Like, I was actually in shock. I was not processing when I was told."
Self-identifying as a "confused third-culture kid," Aliyaan incorporates influences from his distinct cultural background — and his upbringing exploring the diverse Toronto culinary landscape — into his cooking, both IRL and on the show.
"My grandparents moved from India to East Africa, where my parents were born, and that's where they grew up before they were forced to leave and come to Canada, which is where I was born. But then I grew up in Kuwait, and then back here," he explains.
With the season set to premiere later this month, there's no telling yet just how far Aliyaan ended up making it in the competition (or whether he won it all), but his excitement and pride in entering the competition and being able to represent the communities behind him is a victory in itself.
"I'm definitely representing Toronto, representing my family, representing my religious community," Aliyaan tells blogTO.
"I'm a member of the Ismaili Muslim community, which is a very tight-knit community, and a lot of the community has a very similar story of migration as my family did. Canada as a whole became a safe haven for a lot of people — a lot of refugees who have come from other parts of the world in my community — and so being able to represent them on a national platform is really, really special."
You can keep up with Aliyaan's journey on MasterChef Canada every Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET/PT, starting Tuesday, Sept. 22.
