Regional Finalists 2022-23

My grandmother is from North Korea. She came down to South Korea during the Korean War. She was a housewife, but also my chef. She cooked a lot of North Korean food. Among them, my favorite was Pheasant dishes. It's a main signature dish that unravels these foods in my own way. My grandmother's cooking for me was a memory and happiness for me. With those memories, I give people happy memories and dishes and my dream is to become a chef. If She was alive, I would like to cook this for her.

I deconstructed Korean traditional dish 'Sinsello'.I tried to improve the limitations of traditional cooking methods by introducing modern techniques based on my experience working in different countries. I made this dish by composing it with the three elements of Korean traditional meal soup, rice, and banchan, side dishes. In addition, in consideration of sustainability, all ingredients are used for cooking so that no ingredients are thrown away after cooking is finished, ‘0 waste cooking’.

This dish is made using a "priced" protein in our ASEAN culture. It is not something we get to enjoy much of as it was expensive as well. Many farms and villagers I have visited prior to the opening of restaurant Province have hardly enjoyed a prestiges protein as duck. However, when enjoyed it is truly for a special occasion, be it a birthday, wedding or a personal achievement for the families. This dish helps to tell the story of how the different cultures come together as one in a dish.

The message I am trying to deliver with my signature dish is the harmony. The orchestra that makes great music consists of many different instruments. None of them are unimportant. The same goes for our society. The world has been suffering from infectious diseases and wars, I believe we can build stronger and better society by weaving differences together. That is the reason why I picked ingredients from diffent places, which are the tree, the land, and the ocean to create greater synergy.

This dish is an ode to a traditional Québécois meal: the rotisserie chicken. Traditionally, the chicken is served with gravy, a side of creamy or traditional vinegary coleslaw, french fries, and a pain brioche.

A fragment of Quebec’s culinary culture, the history of the rotisserie chicken is also that of French Canadians. But it is also the story of my father, Abdelaziz, who was exposed to ceaseless systemic racism in the labour market and driven, by the ensuing precarity, to deliver the infamous “chef’s special” through long nights. I chose this dish in honour of the Québécois culture, but by choosing the silky chicken, a breed of hen whose black skin and beauty seldom make it a choice for cooking, I want to raise questions around speciesism and racism through my cooking.

I prepare this dish through a mixture of traditions bringing the Québécois recipe together with my Moroccan background to create a unique expression of this rotisserie meal. By selecting as many regional products as possible, I also give thanks to this welcoming land that is Québec and the riches it has to offer. These include some foods that were long used by the Indigenous People of this unceded Atikamekw territory (Nitaskinan) but forgotten in our modern cuisine. These complex and distinctive flavors here find their expression in the traditional Québécois dish.

This dish is an homage to my mother and the time we spent in Italy together. I wanted to showcase a variety of ingredients and techniques that reminded me of Italy as well as things that she would enjoy. She is such an important part of my life and when she took me to italy, I feel like it transformed myself as person as well as the things I was passionate about. My dish is completely vegetarian because I believe in a more veg-forward lifestyle which is more sustainable for the environment.

This dish represents me: german born i lived in Irleand for 10 years. North Sea Cod: Pan-seared to perfection, symbolizing my childhood fishing expeditions in northern Germany. Oyster: Representing Ireland, adorned with colors inspired by the Irish flag (green, white, and orange). Potato Salad with Beurre Blanc: Reflects my time in Hamburg and the elegance of Carls Restaurant. Mashed Peas: A nod to my Irish experience, complementing the traditional fish and chips.

I would like to show that we can eat less meat and fish and eat more vegan or vegetarian.
You can get so many nice flavours and combinations that we can all eat less animals but still get the feeling to have eaten something special

I wish to inspire people to reconnect with their neighborhood. Regionality is not just practiced, it is lived! We need to encourage kids to engage in gastronomy. Let's show the next generation the joy of serving guests dishes made from locally-sourced ingredients, fostering connections with friends in the local farming community. Hopefully, kids today, through my cooking, will discover that, as my grandma always says: 'Where there's a will, there's a way.' Let's create paths worth taking.

I’d like through this creation to express the ambivalence which exists in our «industry». Chef, sommelier,etc, all those occupations can give the image of a certain negativity : physically rude, mentally charged, long hours, fatigue, everyday issues… But once you go over those darks elements, then you discover a world full of color and freshness, sensitivity, solidarity, passion, creativity. With one very important commun duty : bringing happiness to people.
 

Through this dish I wanted to put at the center of the plate a region which is rich with simple products. Sturgeon is not usually valued for its meat but for its caviar, it is not an easy fish to work, but I wanted to put it in the spotlight and use the caviar to season it only , give him back what belongs to him, with respect for the products and the producers.

This dish gives nobility to the sturgeon by placing it at the centre of the plate, with the caviar playing a secondary role as an accompaniment. I love the idea of pairing the fish with the highly prized egg it produces. Born to two young parents, I grew up between Sologne and Provence; by combining the flavours of Douglass, pine kernels and artichokes, as well as remembering the tian my grandmother used to prepare for me and my love of freshwater fish, I'm showing my origins.

With this dish I seek to change the focus generated by some products and turn it into something more personal. Using parts of not so common products and plating them in tableware designed and handcrafted by myself.

With my signature dish I would like to try to tell you judges my story, from my Sicilian origins and what I have learnt these past two years in Spain. Precisely in this dish I have tried to find a marriage between my homeland and Spain, taking a wild meat much used in Spain, and some Sicilian elements that I prefer, which bring back so many beautiful memories linked to my family, because in the end what I love when I cook is to remember.

The dish tries to capture the work philosophy that characterises me in its maximum expression, for this I base it on a traditional stew from Valencia called "All i pebre", always the cuisine of my territory by flag, but drinking from other cultures to enrich the elaborations, in this case with Mexican influence with the mole, the nixtamalisation as an ancestral technique applied to the current cuisine. In short, this dish conveys tradition from a modern perspective of respect for our roots.

What makes a species local, indigenous, alien, invasive, naturalized, or imported to a specific ecology ?How do species, including humans, root in places they are not originally from? I reflect about an invasive specie, the blu crab that over-populates the Lagoon. Reminding us about the colonial history that brought corn from the Americas, I considered the meaning of becoming “naturalized” to local ecologies. I complete by using spontaneous plants that reconnects to the tidal of Venice, halophytes.

I believe as human being that we are very sick. Imagination and language is what did separated humans from animal.
Today peoples are not conscious of who we really are and the consequence is that we create confusion, trends and bad ego is the protagonist in this planet. Today we try to fix this planet by using one word, sustainability.
who really know the significant of that word and who first went to see inside of the most scary place of this world? I think it is better to start from us...

Growing up in the province of Bergamo with my grandmothers, who were born and raised during the war, they always had the philosophy ‘ the butcher throws nothing away of an animal’. A thought that made me reflect on how many different ways there are to make full use of all that a raw material can offer us. This is why I chose to use a rabbit in its entirety and develop the dish starting with the use of a few kilos of carrots, thus managing to have no waste.

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.

For this contest I wanted to create a dish that had the essence of my country. For this, use several products that are not commonly used in Colombian haute cuisine but giving them a transformation, respecting their essence that reaches all palates, extolling their properties. All these foods have a great importance in the daily food of Colombians and by including them on my plate they can show the world the diversity that characterizes us as a country.

Chiriqui's recognized for being the produce pantry of Panama, that’s why my dish's focused on the earth’s bounty with key ingredients of the region. Seren, is a corn soup endemic to the region, with sweet and delicate flavors. My grandmother use the whole corn, from the husk to the cob, because she always says that what the land produces must be used in its entirety. Ubaldina is a homage to her, her heritage, and a journey through my childhood.

The idea of the dish is from my hometown, Xinjiang, which is famous for its tasty lamb. The sheep live in the mountains where the sea-buckthorn and pleurotus grow. To bring the scenery of my hometown, I put them together in the plate. Besides, I also want to introduce the diet and cooking culture to more people in the world. We hardly waste any part of an animal as a respect of the nature, and cook each part separately to make the best use of it. Thrift and sustainability are notably important in this age, I wish I could arouse more attention on them.

I advocate, “to make full use of all things and sustainable ingredients."

I selected the specialty ingredient "Yanchi Tan Sheep" from Ningxia, China and local wild leek flowers. Using Chinese and Western fusion cuisine techniques to cook the lamb chops, lamb loin, lamb bones, internal organs and other parts combined with local flavours to form the flavour profile of the final dish. Puna series mineral water is used to cook the Yanchi Tan sheep, this is also the water that the sheep grew up drinking.

When making sauce and stock, I used the stock from making “lamb wrapped with lamb belly” combined with a sauce made from lamb bones. During cooking, kitchen utensils such as wide-mouth pots and pressure cooker are used to reduce the cooking time and to achieve the reduction of carbon emissions, and sustainability of ingredients. Geographical specialty product "Yanchi Tan Sheep" is selected with the intention to be the guardian of pure bloodlines, and to promote all over China and onward to the world.
 

This dish stemmed from my memory of my hometown. It started with chicken from Hetian Town and that relates to local farms and the whole ecological system. From there, it casts a light onto the Chinese farming and rural society culture.

Poultry is an important element in the dining culture for this city tucked away in the mountains. These Hetian chickens have a wild temperament and were used for imperial chicken fights in the ancient times. The farmers live in the mountains and the chickens roam around freely in the pristine environment feeding on wheat and rice grown on the farm. From my memory, these chickens are capable enough to scale trees and even rooftops.
 

Through this dish, I aim to evoke a sense of culinary heritage and connection to Sweden. The lamb symbolizes tradition and sustenance, reflecting the rich history of pastoral cultures. Each bite tells a story of resilience and harmony with nature and culinary craftsmanship. It embodies a cultural identity deeply rooted in reverence for quality ingredients and time-honored cooking techniques.

Nordic Sea is a dish that focuses on sustainable ingredients. This dish reflects my culinary journey and who I am as a chef today. Combining fishing and cooking is fantastic. Something I often did as a child. Many fish species are now threatened by overfishing and pollution. I focus on cod, blue mussels and seaweed. I use MSC-certified cod from the North Sea. Farmed blue mussels that contribute to a better sea environment and seaweed counteract the negative effects of climate change.

Denmark is the number one country of producing meat averaging 334 kg per person per year. However, as Denmark increasingly focuses on green energy and combating climate change, reducing the consumption of mass-produced meat becomes essential to lower the CO2 index. Through my dish I want to contribute to this change and adapt to a more sustainable future.

This salad is very popular Colombian salad on the Atlantic coast in and we find it with the name clown salad, alluding its name to the bright colors when we mix all the vegetables.
I want to show to the world Colombian’s cousin, and how we integrate the different texture, flavours, colours and techniques from our rich cultural heritage, presenting a popular salad in a sophisticate way.

This dish is called Analogy from the river. The concept is an accumulation of values and experiences I have as a chef. This dish is my expression of my ethnicity on a plate. I intend to integrate applications of tradition and how it can stay resilient despite my migration to the other side of the world. I embrace this because this is what inspires me to visualize the futures potential to sustain life’s practices more than just the gastronomy.

My yakitori is a unique take on the classic Japanese dish, combining traditional flavours with Italian and Australian elements and techniques, delivering a dish that is at once familiar, but unique in taste and texture.
Rather than a traditional yakitori sauce, I cured the egg yolk using colatura di alici, before using the latter to create a gel balanced with dashi that has a unique umami flavour.
My yuzukosho draws on fermented jalapeño for a complex umami flavour, lime zest, juice.

Influence of different cuisines from where I learned becoming French and Spanish my biggest influence, without leaving aside the importance of ingredients, traditions, and heritage of my country, Ecuador, taking care of local producers and craftsman, always taking full advantage and respect for the product with a touch of modernity, creating an experience of textures and sensations in each perfect bite.

I’d like to introduce my dish, to express my way of thinking about both cooking and dealing with life outside of gastronomy. the dish depicts a perfect circle of life, forests ( Deer), rivers (crayfish), mountains (cordyceps) all naturally connected and a human (chef) who unitedly combines nature with technology and cares for the environment. Without our healthy and clean approach to life, nature will not survive on its own nowadays, I would like to make people aware of this as much as possible

The story behind this plate starts with a deer and pumpkin. Because I want to take every chance to make my own home grown plants, last spring I planted pumpkin seeds at the edge of the forest, 50 meters from my restaurant. One morning when I walked to my pumpkin field to check up with my ripe pumpkins, I saw that one had a bite taken off. I knew that there has been a deer eating my pumpkins. That is why I decided to connect three main ingredients: Deer, pumpkin and mushrooms. This is my story.

With this dish, I would like to invite customers to travel into the summer season and beautiful products we can find in Suffolk, the sea bass comes from a fishmonger who work only with small boats and line caught fish. The cherries and the fennel are local from Suffolk farm This dish is a mix of the sea and country side which represent a big part part of the county identity.

Scallops & samphire are the flavour of the galette I was eating as a kid on Brittany's coast when my family was going to a "crêperie", this is why I have chosen 3 major ingredients: scallops beautiful seafood from Scotland (where I am living), samphire foraged along Scottish coast, and buckwheat reminder of the "galette de blé noir" dish of my childhood. Also by using the entirety of the scallops through the dish I want to express the importance of going toward a zero waste way of cooking.

A Chef is someone able to forge a connection between times and who can intertwine the strings of time to create something beautiful. Food is central to our sense of identity. The way any given human group eats helps it assert its diversity, hierarchy and organisation, but also, at the same time, both its oneness and the otherness of whoever eats differently. I wanted to create a dish that reflects my background who couldn't think i would love pigeon.

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.

I would like to show my background in culinary arts by showcasing what I’ve learned and experienced in my time in this industry. Showcasing new American cuisine that celebrates all cultures and techniques.

I believe in Cuisine du terroir, sustainability and respect of the product.
As a young chef I consider myself responsible for preserving our nature. The dish follows the concept of “Farm to Fork”. We grow our own Wagyu cattle and the mushrooms, onions and huckleberry are grown locally which supports our farmers.
Coming from a Hindu family I have pushed all the boundaries to learn and develop my skills to work with our cows and I have immense respect for the animal that has given its life for me.

My roots are in emmental. In the past this was a classical dish for special occasions like birthdays and christening. I re-invented this recipe new style incl. Eco-conscious eating. I used products as in the earlier days like Lamm, Safran, cream, dried fruit but in another combination and compilation.

The first message this dish gets across is a bit of a surprise to most people who taste it as even a simple lettuce plant, if well prepared, can become the tastiest dish on the menu. historically it has no specification, but another important message this dish gets across is definitely that of using all parts of a product, from a to z, from the cooking liquid that becomes a vinaigrette to the daikon waste that becomes kimchi.

My dish embodies simplicity, honesty, and refinement with three core ingredients: mackerel, dulse, and shiitake. Inspired by my parents' bakery, where simplicity was prized, I aimed to create a refined meal with minimalism at its core. Sustainability was crucial; I sourced locally from Belgium, minimizing the food supply chain and using all by-products to reduce waste. This dish reflects both my culinary ethos and dedication to sustainable practices.