Regional Finalists 2024-25

Malaysia, Taiwan, and Singapore are the places influenced me the most. Through this dish, starting from the broth, it's like starting a new journey into the unknown, mist yet exciting; followed by the snack, when you walk into the wood somehow can see delicate food prepared by the nature; and last is the main, you enter the heart of the wood and much more things to explore, which just like our culinary journey. I want to set new trend that how different backgrounds can create interesting story.

When I began cooking about 15 years ago, my mother was ill. I prepared a meal for her, and she shed tears for the first time. In that moment I realized food I make can bring happiness and emotion, and I decided to become a chef. I believe food has great power. Cooking can be tedious, but imagining someone enjoying my dish turns it into joy. A sincere meal comforts tired days and becomes a lasting memory.I cook each plate with heart,hoping it brings happiness and warmth,and makes the world warmer

What I would like to express through this dish is Thai culture, is blended with French because I want to bring Thai food that people eat every day to make it look more exotic and delicious. mixed with the French cuisine that I'm working on.

Growing up in a multicultural household in Canada exposed me to diverse cuisines, fostering a deep appreciation for Canada's melting pot of cultures. My dish draws inspiration from my favourite childhood dishes, Cantonese braised pork and abalone, and Vietnamese Banh Mi, combined with my time spent in some of Canada's top restaurants, I crafted a dish merging Chinese, European, and Vietnamese flavours. I believe that this fusion embodies Canada's cultural richness on a plate.

I want to show that fine dining food can have zero waste when done correctly, getting creative on how to utilize trim in order to reduce food waste will make fine dining more sustainable. this dish when done correctly in a restaurant setting will have zero waste associated with it. it uses techniques that I have developed alongside some of my mentors. This dish is very important to me as it shows my mindest towards cooking on one plate. No waste, local, healthy, delicious.

This dish only uses sustainable ingredients that are locally available in the winter months. When most restaurants are relying on imported produce, local farms are still providing us with root vegetables and apples. On the rocky beaches, the oysters become plump and sweet. I hope to communicate a sense of place and a sense of time, and to show that local eating goes beyond the bounty of the summer months. In the pared-back simplicity of winter there is still beauty and flavour to be found.

My dish should represent the northern Waldviertel and the history of my family. The idea for my signature dish was born in my head from childhood flavours. But I also want to use it to show sustainability and make a statement that you can still cook an interesting style of cuisine using classic techniques.

This dish expresses my journey from a humble Vietnamese kitchen to European fine dining. By uniting classic techniques with hometown flavors—like Sa Chau fish sauce, Xá Xíu, and pho aromatics—I tell a story of cultural harmony. The wheat tuile and smoky eggplant evoke my deep Vietnamese roots. It reflects my identity: a modern chef proudly carrying my heritage to the global stage, bridging two worlds through food.

In this dish I want to give a stage to an ingredient that I think is underestimated (the horse) and represent it as much as possible. I take the food of the horse, the so-called soft food and complement with it parts of the animal to present the whole. I want this animal to be culinary understood from beginning to end.

A plate full of memories of my trip to Bretagne in the summer. I found a wild fennel herb in the nature of Bretagne, I bought organic vegetables and herbs from local producers. I fished in the sea of Bretagne, (natural fish and natural common cockle and seaweeds that actually experienced fishing)
The main ingredient,Turbot, is baked, The Flounder Fin, bone-based sauce, and Turbot skin chips, all of which can be cooked and enjoyed with different sauces and garnishes.

I learned to respect nature and its ingredients from my grandmothers. In their kitchen, waste was minimal and every flavor was honest and true. That philosophy shaped my roots, and those flavors inspire A Rabbit Walking Around the Mountains. I see myself in a carefully tended garden and in the work of local producers, thoughtfully chosen, whose dedication gives my cuisine its deepest connection to the land. Everything rests on attention to to detail and rigorous, passionate technique.

I wanted to challenge myself to make a gourmet dish but also entirely vegetable and 0 waste. Everyone must realize that a beetroot does not necessarily taste like earth, that a vegetable dish is not a poor and indulgent dish. All the vegetables and herbs that we know can be worked in so many ways... I suggest you one.

My favorite part of my childhood is the sea so that was my main inspira tion for this signature dish.I really want to transmite the ocean to everyone who tries the dish, especially because I'm from Viana do Castelo and we have several tradition related to the sea as getting up early and going to the beach to get seafood from the rocks.I remember the first time I tried a sea urchin, 100% sea.I want everyone to feel that flavour, that memory and get to know better Viana do Castelo by this dish.

With this signature dish I intend to elevate the octopus to its maximum using all parts of it, without any waste. The place where I work, in Tavira, octopus is one of the great treasures that exists, and I intend to make it shine!

The dish idea combines Spain and Italy's linguistic and cultural ties, rich in shared elements I value. I'll merge Spanish stewed tongue with Italian cold tongue, reflecting my veggie passion. Ingredients like salsify, watercress, wild plants, and roots will be preserved, enhancing the dish and fostering a connection with nature.

My journey starts with sweetbread, a beloved traditional dish from my homeland, often used in my professional experience. The “in carpione” pumpkin is prepared like Lake Garda fish. The langoustine is leveraged in its entirety, as the head is filled by an orangette and sided by a coconut milk-based drink that enhances its minerality. I designed this 3D-printed compostable set, which evokes the sweetbread with its texture, to raise the commensal’s awareness on the consuming of raw material.

I began cooking out of necessity, having grown up without a safety net. Then it became a language. Caruggio tells the story of a walk through Sanremo, from the sea to the mountains, along narrow alleyways that bring contrasts together. It uses only ingredients found along this route, chosen for what they are. To me, respecting an ingredient means applying the right heat at the right moment. I want to create a cuisine that is clean, plant-forward and visionary. Not as a trend. As a responsibility.

My "Ossi di seppia" draws inspiration from Montale's work, where bones, wandering among the waves and seemingly worthless, symbolize a miserable yet significant existential condition. Like the small things in daily life, they conceal intrinsic value and beauty. By using every part of the cuttlefish, even those considered scraps, I aim to showcase their importance and convey the significance of circular cooking to reduce waste and valorise each ingredient.

Goat is a typical product of my region Mendoza. I have eaten it since my childhood, my grandfather taught me how to cook it on a flame but I never experimented with other cooking methods, so it became a personal search of how to transform it and find other textures, flavours and combinations that complemented it. I want to show that with the same product I can achieve different preparations by working it 100% without wasting anything from head to toe, mixing migratory cultures.

On this dish I want to express the life and customs of the first inhabitants of Paraguay. hunters, fishermen, gatherers and growers, showing that with products from the Paraguayan soil, which nature gives us by applying production techniques with adequate knowledge, they can be served with great pride.
The diet of the first inhabitants was based on cassava, corn, sweet potato, banana, vegetables and fruits.
They used hunting and fishing.

With this dish, I aim to express the essence and authenticity of seafood from the Pacific coast, especially in Chile. My intention is to tell a story of respect for the sea and its resources, highlighting the freshness and quality of local ingredients. My goal is to capture the freshness and unique flavor of these ingredients, emphasizing the culinary tradition and art that surrounds them.

This dish is a conversation of humble roots & cuisine’s inclusive power, as I’m from the “wrong side of the river” in rural Shanghai & trained on the Rhône in Lyon. Vol-au-vent & Kousansi share a Chinese superior sauce brewed of Acqua Panna, topped with upcycled tuiles patterned from Song Dynasty art. I believe, in our divisive era, cuisine bridges cultures and nourishes innovation with understated depth & radical earnestness, respecting ingredients & welcoming all to drink from a shared well.

I believe that the whole point of journeying far away is to return home with a deeper understanding of flavors. Like a pigeon travelling across mountains and seas, I left Anhui to pursue my culinary dream. No matter how far I wander, the warmth of family and the flavors of my hometown remain in my heart. Though I chase light thousands of miles away, my heart always finds its way home.

I express the fusion between two cultures, Chinese and Italian. The dish is composed of childhood memories where every Sunday as a child I cooked with my grandmother "Spaguetti pomodoro", I grew up with the taste of this food and I tell this story with Chinese elements, peppers from the Sichuan region, which I transfer to the tomato sauce. I replace the "grano paste" with bamboo, from southern China. I follow my dish with crostini in it there is osmantus that reminds me of the Chinese spring.

Over 800 million people around the world go to bed hungry each night. At the same time, one third of all the food that is produced for human consumption is wasted, and obesity is one of the western world’s most pressing health issues.

Hunger is one of modern civilization’s great paradoxes, since it is a problem that already has a solution. The cure for hunger is called food – and we already produce too much of it.

 

I want to send the message that we really must make sure that the local food production survives in the future. In Norway, we are losing more and more of the producers because people don’t buy their vegetables/products. I want to show how amazing vegetables can be, just cooked the right way and that you can order a vegetarian dish in a restaurant, and still feel full. I’m doing this using some traditional cooking methods in a more modern and vegetarian way and only using Local products.

Living on the Swedish west coast of course I love to work with anything from the sea next to me, something that is getting harder to do! The amount of fish in the sea is decreasing due to overfishing and the sea environment is getting destroyed due to questionable fishing methods. With my dish i like to showcase the fantastic and sustainable produce that we have in form of halibut farmed by sterling and cagecaught langoustine and how to enhance them with flavours from all around the world.

Driven by the understanding that we are the kaitiaki of rivers and oceans, this plate challenges how we care for our resources. It confronts past mistakes like the devastating overfishing of whitebait, which was once used as common garden fertiliser. Jackson has chosen to use abundant Australian ingredients to recreate childhood memories responsibly. This dish utilises zero-waste techniques to blend childhood playfulness with a commitment to ecological preservation.

Growing up in New Zealand shaped my respect for seafood and the ocean. Inspired by the cultural significance of pāua and the values of stewardship that underpin New Zealand's coastal identity, this dish celebrates lobster and abalone in their fullest expression. Through classical technique and whole-animal utilisation, from sauce Américaine made from the shells to the pāua liver xo. I want to honour both the ingredient and the place that shaped me.

Through this dish, I aim to express the elegance and complexity of Australian gourmet cuisine. The combination of duck, plums, and Australian black truffles showcases the country's rich agricultural diversity and culinary potential. The dish pays homage to my grandfather's farm and Australia's ability to produce high-quality, luxury ingredients and its growing reputation in the global gourmet scene.

I Choose this plate because I grew up in a small town next to the sea and the area is rich in fish. I remember that every week I saw my grandmother cook this type of fish with the most of ingredients are the same and I put my signature with my techniques to present you my childhood memories

Through this dish, I would like to express my Hungarian roots and the culinary identity of my region, Eger. The suckling Mangalica pig represents tradition, heritage, and respect for local ingredients, while cabbage reflects the simplicity and resilience of Hungarian cuisine. My goal is to present these humble elements through a modern fine dining perspective, combining history, emotion, and contemporary technique on one plate.

Today's dish is more than just a meal; it is a plea for sustainability and responsibility. The present we live in is marked by major ecological challenges. Water pollution,food waste,and climate change are just a few of the urgent issues demanding our attention. These are not just statistics; Perhaps the Earth is sending us a message,urging us to return to essentials. Now, more than ever, we need to remember this simplicity and cook with conscience. Come back to our roots. This dish is a manifesto.

This dish reflects my childhood on my grandparents’ farm, where food was always seasonal and nothing was wasted. Sour cherries remind me of jam and chutney we made during cherry season, while cumin recalls the warm soups my grandmother cooked in colder months. Using the whole pigeon honors their philosophy of respect for ingredients, turning memories, tradition, and sustainability into one plate.

English Rose is my ode to London and the opportunities hospitality creates. Growing up in a difficult household, cooking became my path to purpose and success. Inspired by the English rose, I transform humble butternut squash into something elegant, showing how overlooked things can flourish when given opportunity. Kept vegan to celebrate its natural flavour, with seaweed providing natural salinity, this dish reflects how hospitality can help anyone rise above difficult beginnings.

I want to focus on traditional Rajasthani hunter-style cooking by showcasing grains, vegetables of the region. It reflects the time when kings used to go out hunting for weeks, they would carry minimal spices and grain and they would cook the hunted animal in the pit. My dish is surrounded by that idea but with my execution.

Through this dish, I'd like to show that brazilian ingredients are unique and amazing just as much as from any other part of the world. Since starting my career outside of my country as a immigrant, I've received a lot of comments ''what is the food like in Brazil?'', and I can confirm that for being a ''3rd world country'', many times our food culture is left behind and not taken as seriously as other cultures. Our potential is huge and I'd like to show that to the world.

My dish is a homage to my mom. Being an immigrant, my mom has faced a lot of obstacles with my grandma (mee-maw), but the first time they were able to bond was through growing potatoes of all things. Now, every couple of potatoes are filled with the same excitement as that day she shared digging them up with my mee-maw. This dish is a portrayal of my mom’s garden with a mix of Filipino and American flavors, with hints of the chickens that try to pluck her harvest before fruition.

Three Shores, One Table tells the story of the cultures that shaped my identity as a chef. Born and raised in Maracay, Venezuela, with Italian heritage and professionally developed in Miami, I use lamb as a thread connecting memory, tradition, and evolution. Through three complementary preparations, the dish explores how different culinary traditions can coexist, creating new expressions while honoring their origins. It reflects who I am today and the chef I aspire to become: one who builds bridges.

With this first course I wanted to create a link between land and sea, revisiting a typical preparation of my country, the porchetta. I am a lover of the sea and I wanted to make a preparation that combines the two in a modern way. Combining these also with pasta, it can never be missing in an Italian lunch. Tradition and innovation come together respecting the raw material.

Each ingredient of the earth and each part of an animal must be respected and valued, and this is only possible by putting a lot of love into it. I have sought here to pay tribute to them, putting meat, vegetables and the less noble part on the same footing. By sublimating our cuisine, I think we can honor nature, the producers and let people know that it is possible to consume in a fairer way with less waste.

I want to illustrate with my dish that we can present a beautiful and flavorful plate with just a few main ingredients. With those main products at the center, I want to go for a varied and complex mouthfeel.

A plate with too many ingredients takes the attention away from your product and moreover, it does not always form a whole. With this dish I want to show that you can bring a wide variation on your plate with just a few ingredients, even without going expensive in this case.