Vincent Chan: Where Are They Now?

Spoiler note: this post confirms that Vincent Chan won his season of The Great Canadian Baking Show.

Vincent Chan won season 5 of The Great Canadian Baking Show in December 2021, a 55-year-old graphic designer from the Toronto area (the show listed him from Mississauga) with one of the warmest presences the tent has hosted. His season aired just months after season 4 wrapped, thanks to the pandemic-scrambled schedule, making 2021 the only year with two Canadian champions. Here is what he has been up to since.

The season 5 win

Chan earned Star Baker twice on his way to the title, during Celebration Week and Pie and Tart Week, and took the crown in the December 5, 2021 finale with judges Bruno Feldeisen and Kyla Kennaley and hosts Ann Pornel and Alan Shane Lewis. CBC's winner coverage introduced viewers to the life around the baking: his husband Phil, their dog Karma, and a garden that features heavily in his baking. He is the fifth name on the full list of Great Canadian Baking Show winners.

A very full life, mostly off camera

Chan is the platonic Canadian winner: he took the title home and got on with an already busy life. He continued working as a graphic designer, and his post-show profile is less about business ventures than about community. He is president of Toronto's first and only LGBTQ2+ badminton league, an avid gardener, golfer, and kayaker, and by his own telling has picked up pickleball and lawn bowling since. Eat North ran a charming one-day-in-Toronto feature with him after the win, and he shares his bakes on Instagram as vincent_chan_bakes.

In November 2023 he returned to the tent for the show's holiday special, baking alongside other past winners, which remains his highest-profile appearance since the title.

Where things stand now

No bakery, no cookbook, no streaming deal, and seemingly no regrets. Chan's public footprint is that of a man who won a national baking title in his mid-fifties and treated it as a lovely chapter rather than a career pivot. For fans, the Instagram account is the place to check in: gardens, bakes, and the occasional throwback to the tent.

The takeaway for fans

Season 5 is a gem, and Chan's win is one of the show's feel-good peaks: proof that the Canadian tent rewards decades of quiet craft. Watch his Celebration Week Star Baker episode for the best of him, then go plant something.