Two Vancouver Islanders will vie for the title of top chef and a $100,000 prize, as competitors in the second season of Top Chef Canada.

Top Chef Canada premièred last April and is the No. 1 series on Food Network Canada. The series, hosted by actress Lisa Ray, pits 16 competitors against each other in culinary challenges.

Kunal Ghose, 39, is the chef and co-creator of Red Fish Blue Fish, a gourmet fish shack serving local and sustainable food in Victoria's Inner Harbour. He was born in Toronto, but moved to Steveston when he was two.

"My mom, she's a little British woman of Greek, Scottish and Chilean background and my dad's East Indian," Ghose said. "So I grew up eating all kinds of different foods."

He began working in the restaurant business at 13, when he got a weekend job running a salad bar. By the time he was 17, he was supervising the same restaurant's kitchen.

He is the eldest competitor and has nearly 25 years of industry experience.

"I've probably been in the business longer than anybody," he said.

Ghose counts the "tacone," which he invented while working at Go Fish in Vancouver, among his culinary accomplishments.

"The tacone is my version of a fish taco, it's sort of a Japanese handroll mixed with a Mexicanstyle fish taco, rolled into a cone shape."

He opened Red Fish Blue Fish in 2007.

Joel Aubie, 27, is head chef at Shelter Restaurant in Tofino. He displays his only tattoo, during his audition video: A bundle of bay leaves, rosemary, thyme, sage and a few black peppercorns.

"It's a little bouquet garni, if you will, that I always put into a pot of risotto while it's simmering," he said on the phone from Tofino.

Aubie grew up in Bathurst, N.B., and skipped 14 of his high school hockey games to cook at a local French restaurant. He studied at the Culinary Institute of Canada and has cooked in six provinces: New Brunswick, P.E.I., Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and B.C. He moved to Tofino in 2004 to surf and cook at the Wickaninnish Inn.

"For a 20 year old, the draw is pretty strong to come to a place like this."

Two other B.C.-based chefs also made it into the competition this season: Vancouver's Trevor Bird and Whistler's Jimmy Stewart.

The new season of Top Chef Canada premières March 12.