Regional Finalists 2024-25

"Miso-marinated" Omi beef and "heshiko," aged fish, have a history of hundreds of years in my hometown. I added the traditional French "hollandaise sauce" and "cherries condiment" to create a new dish. The cherries harmonize the traditional cuisine of both countries. However, if climate change continues, cherries will no longer be available in the future. This shows that while historic dishes can evolve, there is a future where foods may no longer exist.

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’.

Many chefs talk about « sustainability » on media, and I am also concerned, especially when it's related to food waste. Food waste carries a social, environmental, and financial problem, as a cook, everyday we see how much food we waste from the kitchen.

During this competition, I would like to make my own creation for the purpose of zero waste: The whole chicken will be used entirely. I would like to express what we can do as a chef with our little strength and our social responsibility.

“A Fire Between Two Homes” is a reflection of who I am today: a Filipino cook still learning, but deeply aware of what I carry. This dish begins with chicken inasal, a food shaped by fire, smoke, vinegar, annatto, and family memory. It speaks of my history, but also my future: to grow as a chef without forgetting home. My intent is to show Filipino food with honesty, restraint, and soul, and to prove that our stories deserve a place on the world stage

This dish reflects my life and experiences—a blend of French culinary skill and comforting home flavors from Canada as a multicultural nation. Montreal's Chinatown was my sanctuary, sparking my fascination with diverse culinary traditions, inspiring me still today. Cooking, for me, is love and passion, rooted in respect—using every part of ingredients, minimizing waste, letting flavors shine. Join my journey as a French-Canadian chef celebrating diverse influences shaping my culinary identity.

I want to pay tribute to our forests and also to our ancestors who lived there using ancestral cooking methods such as crust baking and banique bread. I also want to bring back memories and make you nostalgic with the smell of dead leaves when you go mushroom picking. The mushrooms will also be showcased, as will some of the trees that can be found there. I really want to transport the judges to a forest in the middle of autumn.

I want to combine my styrian heritage, austrian seasonal products, french cuisine and an asian touch.

Venison, in my opinion, is the most sustainable, eco-friendly, healthy and regional meat that exists. It grows and lives sustainably in the wild, foraging naturally in the austrian forest and it´s entirely free from medication and antibiotics.

I believe the future of cuisine lies in clarity rather than complexity. Through my journey from the Belgian North Sea to kitchens across Europe, I have collected techniques, cultures and influences. Over time, I learned that true refinement is not about adding more, but understanding what deserves to remain. This dish tells that story. Langoustine becomes the common thread between memory, discovery and identity, expressing a cuisine driven by authenticity, emotion and respect for the ingredient.

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.

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.
 

France and my hometown, South Korea are both surrounded by the sea and is a temperate climate where produce, livestock, and seafood abound. My dish celebrates these ingredients and highlight the 4 elements that maintain the delicate balance of life: soil, sea, sky, and fungi. I believe that this philosophy will open my eyes to view humble ingredients in a different light. To keep exploring earth’s offerings by experimenting unique flavor combinations and new ingredients.

My name is Klervi. It's a Celtic name from Brittany, Bretagne region of France from my mother. She gave me the taste of the gastronomic products with the fish, the seaweeds and the buckwheat. I found this passion again few years later when I met my Mentor from Japan. We found out that the products from Bretagne and Japan are quite the same. The Colombo, is a memory from my childhood in Guadeloupe, french island in the Caribbean. The sea is the link between this 3 regions and my traveling diary.

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.

500 characters are less than I imagined so I'm retyping everything and trying to be shorter I want to say with this dish that "tutto il mondo è paese" because from an idea of an italian dish (risotto ai frutti di mare), using spanish and mexican products and preparation I'm making a dish that is present in a different way in the three countries (arroz a la tumbada in mexico and paella de mariscos in spain).
As well I choose to use bivalves and seaweed because they are sustainable products.

The origin of the techniques and flavours of this dish come from the city where my surname comes from, from an emblematic family who to this day represent historical flavours and maintain their roots, and above all from the great use that this region has made for centuries of the natural resources of its geography, such as rivers and countryside, where they ate from their own vegetable garden. This is a tribute to them.

'Mappina' is a salad typical of the province of Cosenza. In Le ricette regionali italiane (1967), Anna Gosetti della Salda writes: “Take several lettuce hearts, wash them thoroughly, drain them and place them in a bowl; sprinkle them with small pieces of garlic and chilli pepper, salt and a little oil. Place a weight on top of the salad and leave it like this for two or three days in the refrigerator…” (p. 947). This historic recipe provides the starting point for an entirely plant-based narrative rooted in the flavors and traditions of Southern Italy.

Migration and Integration
Arriving in a new place is not always easy and even more so it is not easy to integrate and be accepted with your traditions by people with a culture different from yours. The African slaves in Peru in 1800 were able to integrate their spices and traditions to a very important dish in the Inca culture such as the carapulcra.With this dish I want to tell my journey, playing with techniques, shapes and colors to propose the flavors of my land with an Italian twist.

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.

Alma Patagonia is a creation that captures the soul of Chile´s southern territory. It is a dish that intertwines delicacies from diverse ecosystems, which vary from the depths of the sea, to lush fertile forests. This blend pays tribute to a culture that bases its cuisine on the available ingredients that Mother Earth provides, which must be used fully. Pure nature permeates through a combination of flavors and textures, and surprises the palates of adventurous gourmands.

Punta Hermosa is my home, where my father taught me to read waves and honor the ocean, shaping my identity through Peruvian biodiversity and Italian heritage into my cooking. Today, seeing bottom trawling devastate our sea breaks my heart. This dish is an emotional wake-up call, a zero-waste creation that brings my childhood to the table. It connects my history to an urgent mission: inspiring people to protect the Peruvian sea that gives us everything, the same sea woven into my identity.

A fufu portrait is the story of the Riquelme’s, my family from my mother’s side. In all our gatherings we’ll come together around this delicious soup made from fish head, coconut milk, curry, and root vegetables. Why just the head? Because the rest of the fish we pickled it in our family’s escobish.
As a kid, it was beautiful to see all my aunts having fun around those pots trying to feed a battalion. For me fufu and escobish represent the strong bond between my kin and the roots of my people.

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.

This is a modern culinary expression that combines local Sichuan ingredients with traditional French cooking techniques. Through this dish, it showcases the exchange and fusion of different regions and cultures, highlighting the harmony and balance of Sichuan's natural environment. Fresh seasonal bamboo shoots, sun-drenched Daliangshan yellow potatoes, and the unique flavor of wood ginger are used, aiming to express the skills and aesthetics of modern cooking through traditional French methods.

Through this dish, I want to bring the focus back to cooking itself. We live in a time where everything becomes an image very quickly, and food is often judged by how it looks before people even taste it. For me, a dish should first be delicious, warm and satisfying. The picture is important, but eating matters more. I have put my memories, my background, and the way I understand food into this dish. I hope it can remind young chefs to come back to flavour, technique, aroma and cooking.

In the modern world people get exposed to a huge number of ideas and opinions every day. The purpose of my dish is not to educate a person or try to put a new idea in his head, but simply bring joy and awaken positive emotions. I want to try and give joy to people by creating delicious food from good quality ingredients. If I can make someone feel good with my dish, I can contribute to making the world a better place and that is the most important for me. Delicious food is inspiring in itself.

With more than 10 years experience in different countries it took me a second to realize and change mi mindset when it comes to cooking when I landed in Sweden a year ago, all green and good use of resources. My personal goal in my career is to reduce waste as much as possible, we are so many in this planet but most of us don't do enough to minimize our negative impact in nature. I believe we can do so much more and what´s better than start with what we eat in our restaurants?

The Silent Flock – A Life Through Lamb explores the life cycle of a sheep as a reflection of Ireland’s journey across generations. Lamb, hogget and mutton represent youth, growth and maturity, mirroring my grandfather’s generation of necessity, my father’s generation of change, and my own generation of opportunity. Rooted in whole-animal cookery and the Irish landscape, it honors the past while looking confidently toward the future of Irish cuisine.

Nalli Nihari is a hearty poor man's dish from Lucknow, India, wherein lamb shanks are slow cooked overnight served with roti bread. This is one of those rare dishes that traveled from the homes of commoners to the royal palaces. Taking this idea, I have presented the dish as a lamb leg wellington, showcasing the journey of the dish similar to my own. Keeping technique and flavour at forefront, I believe this is who I am. The future of cuisine is how tastefully one can embrace their heritage.

As an immigrant, moving from South Korea to growing up in Ireland, one of the challenges was the cuisine. I went from having rice with lots of different sides (banchan) such as kimchi, to having a meat and two vegetables. One of my earliest food memory is going to my friends house and trying bacon and cabbage. I remember the boiled salty pork and the sautéed cabbage with mustard and some steamed potatoes with butter on top. So I wanted to do a dish that combined the two different cultures.

This dish reflects my journey from Nepal to Australia and how migration deepened my understanding of Nepalese flavours beyond recipes. Growing up, sustainability, preservation and zero waste were not trends but part of everyday life. Every component is inspired by flavours from my childhood — mustard oil, timur, tea, fermentation and smoke. Through this dish, I reinterpret those memories through fine dining to share the warmth and depth of Nepalese flavours with the world.

My dish is my interpretation to the classic Borscht. I took my mother’s recipe and disassembled it and combined it with the local ingredients and flavor’s. The dish itself served on plates that passed in my family in inheritance.
My goal was to make a dish that combines two cultures, memories from my childhood and also has minimum waste. I tried to use all the parts of all the ingredients.

It’s an honour to present to you a dish that is deeply inspired by the culinary heritage of Malta — one that bridges tradition and innovation, land and sea, history and identity. This is my dish:Glazed Rabbit loin served with a Maltese barley koji-marinated rabbit leg, carrot purée, and a rich sauce of rabbit bones, local liquor, and prawn head bisque. On the side, a rabbit offal pie inspired by pastizzi, and a consommé that evokes the soul of the Maltese prawn.

I believe true cuisine should preserve emotion, memory and identity. In Silesia, where I was born, Sunday meals brought generations together around one table. Rabbit, once raised beside my family home and served only on special Sundays, became a symbol of my earliest memories: my grandmother’s kitchen, my grandfather’s smokehouse, and the wild mushrooms I now forage with my wife. Through contemporary technique, this dish preserves warmth, belonging and the feeling of home for future generations.

My dish is a take on the classic Spanish Suquet, it being the first dish I learnt to prepare. I grew up in India, a country defined by it’s food, but, as a chef, I have always tried not to be defined by my background. Working with traditional Spanish cuisine is inspiring me to believe that food should represent a chef rather than being confined to the expectations of what a cuisine should be. I have chosen to elevate a traditional dish, with elements inspired by my heritage.

Through a desire to seek out and understand culture outside of my own, I have been able discover so much about myself and the food I want to create. I am inspired by the flavours/methods of the world, and I want to use what I have discovered by cooking delicious food without boundaries. Ode to Sam Yee is an homage to my partner who has shared her culture with me. This dish combines Chinese flavours with my classically trained French cooking methods. This is about creating new traditions.

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.

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.

This dish represents my love for classic techniques and exploring new flavors while minimizing waste and creating a unique dining experience. I fell in love with Country Ham while living in Charleston, but we never had a good use for all the scraps. Substituting the Country Ham scraps for the more classic dried shrimp or scallops creates a slightly smokier XO that bridges Chinese cuisine and the American South, which is important to me- bridging gaps between cultures through food.

The Vietnam Cookery Culture is not simply the France and China Cuisine, but it is the fusion between those Big Two Cordon Bleu that give birth to the Street Foods in Saigon. The type of “ Haute Cuisine” are available to all the people, no matter where are they from.
My Mission, is to deliver this message to Fine Dinning Table, the belief is to parade “Before Fine Dinning was born, there was Street Food”

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.

Expressing the connection between the interior of Portugal and the Atlantic coast. Iberian black pork represents the land and my rural roots, while the clams and Bulhão Pato reflect our maritime heritage. Bread at the table can never be absent and is always there to soak up the sauce.

By combining traditional flavours with contemporary techniques, I seek to honour the ingredients and culture that have shaped me as a chef, showing that Portugal guides me in every sense: personal, culinary and gastronomic.

When someone asks me, what my favorite thing to cook is, I always have to think. In my career I've worked at all stations in the kitchen and therefore I really like to do all kinds of food. I also wanted my dish to be challenge for me and also to be able to show most of my skills. That's why I created this dish. I can show different cooking methods of the parts of the pigeon, and my skills with doughs and vegetables. The whole dish was inspired by thinking about a pigeon in the forest.