Vancouver-Based Chef Chanelle Saks Makes Her Big Debut on Netflix’s “Million Dollar Secret”

At the château where Netflix’s Million Dollar Secret unfolds, the food is not just plated for the camera. It is cooked, served and eaten—and every meal is part of the game.

That is where Vancouver-based private chef Chanelle Saks comes in.

Her background includes large-scale corporate catering in Calgary, where she worked with clients like Telus and events such as the Global Energy Show, experience that translates easily to the pace and scale of a television production.

Filmed in the Okanagan and released this April, the series centres on high stakes and big money, but behind the scenes Saks was responsible for feeding it. Not just the elaborate dishes seen at elimination dinners, but every off-camera meal as well. For weeks, she cooked for a rotating cast with shifting dietary needs, often planning menus just 48 hours in advance.

“[One producer] described food as a character on the show,” says Saks. “I thought that was so poetic, but also so cool and refreshing.”

It is a rare approach for television, where food is often styled rather than eaten. Here, it had to hold up under pressure, visually striking enough for the camera, but also real, timely and tailored to the moment. “The show is bold and it’s cutthroat,” Saks says, “so the food was meant to be reflective of that.”

Her approach, though, stayed consistent. Saks’s cooking is ingredient-driven, drawing on French and Greek traditions rooted in both her heritage and professional experience. Growing up around her parents’ fine dining French restaurant helped shape her palate early on, a foundation that carries through in her work today. On set, that translated into dishes featuring B.C. products, including halibut in one of the early elimination dinners, a deliberate way of bringing regional food onto a global platform.

Local food has long shaped her work. As a former Buy BC ambassador, Saks has spent years connecting with farmers and producers across the province, building dishes around their stories as much as their ingredients. “I use food as a means to tell a story,” she says.

On set, that storytelling extended beyond the plate. Saks describes the production as a kind of creative ecosystem, with chefs, camera operators and lighting crews working in sync. “We’re all just artists,” she says, adding that having everybody there working on their art side by side “is like this beautiful dance that just makes my heart sing.”

With the show now out, Saks is already building on the experience, including a series of experiential dinners inspired by the château setting that bring elements of the production into a live setting.

The project places her, and the work she has built in B.C., on a much larger stage.

“I’m just really proud to be representing female chefs,” she says, “but also B.C. on such a global stage.”