Winnipeg cooking competition blends the spooky with the scrumptious

A new Winnipeg-shot reality television series is putting a spooky spin on the traditional cooking competition.

“Ghost Kitchens” pits three local ghost kitchen chefs against each other with their creations judged by a ghost at a haunted house.

“We get some paranormal experts, some psychics to try and determine if there's any activity to see if the ghosts prefer one of the dishes, and then one of them wins,” series director Taylor Brown told CTV Morning Live’s Nicole Dubé in an interview.

One of the competitors is a Winnipeg ghost baker known as Megs.

Ghost kitchen chefs and bakers create food in bare bones commercial spaces without dining rooms and minimal staff. The economical model became popular during the onset of COVID-19 when so many restaurants had to shut their doors due to public health orders.

Megs was tapped to vie for paranormal prestige after Brown became familiar with her highly Instagrammable cakes, cookies and cupcakes during the pandemic.

She was initially confused by the show’s premise, but intrigued.

“They explained it to me. I was like ‘wow, this is ridiculous, but amazing. I’m in,’” she recalled.

“On set, there was, I think paranormal activity all around.”

Baker Megs is shown in a production still from the upcoming Bell Five TV1series "Ghost Kitchens".

The Seven Oaks House Museum was tapped as the filming location. Winnipeg’s oldest home and provincial heritage site, Seven Oaks House is said to be a hotbed of paranormal activity.

Local comedian Angie St. Mars was also brought in to host the supernatural series.

“We bring everybody together at Seven Oaks House where they presented the dishes, and we started an investigation and went way into the night, into like 3 a.m.,” Brown recalled.

The four-episode miniseries is available to watch on Bell Fibe TV1.

While Megs won’t spoil who took home the ghostly glory, she did share an amuse-bouche.

“They did say that there was a really good energy around my dish, so that was amazing.”

- With files from CTV’s Nicole Dubé