Regional Finalists 2022-23

My mother’s dawn-steamed rice and her traditional pantry shaped my childhood culinary pride. Growing up as a chef, I found her humble kitchen held a profound system of knowledge: the soul of fish sauce, rice culture, and flavor balance. This lobster, sticky rice, and phở dish contemporary retells those memories. It’s about deeply understanding our core values and wrapping the Vietnamese soul in a modern structure. I dream of our cuisine stepping out globally with an irreplaceable identity.

"Humans and nature are not separate; they create value together. Across Asia, time becomes value through drying, fermentation, aging, and brewing. In Japan, UMAMI captures a part of this wisdom.

By reinterpreting Ikameshi—where sea squid meets land rice—I express this time culture in a five-hour competition. Through the cycle of sea, land, and sky, the dish honors the lives sustaining it, from squid to bees, hoping it continues.

To me, UMAMI is when nature, time, and human wisdom converge."

I would like to express familiar flavors through this dish — flavors I used to enjoy during my childhood. As time passed, I could no longer find this dish or experience it in the same way again, but I still clearly remember its taste and the feelings connected to it. Through this dish, I want to recreate those memories and pay tribute to one of my favorite childhood meals.

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.

This is the purest form of expression of my journey. This dish will take you through the beginning of my career all the way to the present. It takes inspiration from my grandmother’s impactful love for cooking transmitted to me as a young girl, to the reflection of my culinary career. My development as a chef and the learning of cultures, were turning points of finding my own identity and what has devoted me to this chapter.

This dish, in a nutshell, represents who I am. Not only are all the main ingredients sourced from directly here in Canada, but also the techniques used I learned (and tweaked) from all the most important restaurants I have worked. It takes humble ingredients like duck and corn and elevates them to a new level of luxury. Lastly it attempts to blur the lines between savoury and sweet dishes with the use of popcorn and shortbread. Its an artful and fun representation of who I am as a chef.

My dish reflects my journey between Ukrainian roots and life in Germany. Through venison, forest ingredients, local seasonal products and a zero-waste approach, I express memory, adaptation and connection to nature. The flavors combine Ukrainian traditions with the wild, earthy character of German forests. This dish represents the kind of chef I want to become — one who tells personal stories through conscious and modern gastronomy.

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.

My dish means tolerance and integration. In every kitchen I've worked in, there were chefs from all over the world. I have put many nationalities together on my plate and want to show how well different things can harmonize. Most people only ever think of one direction when cooking, French cuisine, Asian cuisine or whatever.
I believe there are no limits. The food has to taste good.

My cuisine celebrates the dialogue between terroir and travel. I prioritize French ingredients sourced from local producers, while imported products are used only to enhance these local treasures. Through this plant-based dish, I aim to show that vegetables can be both flavorful and deeply satisfying. Celeriac is used in its entirety, elevated by farmhouse miso and tonka bean. The satellite offers a complementary interpretation through different textures and expressions.

Mestizo Tamal reflects my journey as a chef and the heritage that shaped me. I was born and raised in Nuevo León, but my family roots in Mazatlán, on the Pacific coast, deeply influenced my connection to food. This dish represents the meeting of those worlds, blending tradition and modern culinary techniques. It is a personal expression of identity, memory, and growth through cooking.

My dish associates two opposed universe: the "meaty" one from the Chateauneuf farm beef and the iodized one from the cuttlefish and the herring eggs
These three product prepared in their entirety will along the preparation and then degustation respond and feature them self. They will reveal their complexity and the deepness of their taste but still with a strong readability.
A key quest to the essential in the idea that “less it’s more” in this special social and environmental context.

My dish is inspired by potaje de berros, a traditional Canary Islands watercress stew that embodies the region’s rural cuisine and collective memory. Using Tenerife kid goat and a zero-waste approach, I reinterpret its key ingredients—watercress, gofio, cheese, pickles and broth—through a contemporary lens. The dish celebrates place, seasonality and local producers, showing how humble cuisine can evolve into fine dining without losing its identity or authenticity.

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.

With this proposal, what I am trying to do is make the most of a product of such quality as hake. Hake is one of the most consumed foods in Spain by the most humble families. In this dish I use all parts of the hake to avoid throwing waste in the trash. The garnishes are also made with cheap products simulating how poor families would make them. The dish has three preparations using a different part of the hake in each of them.

With this dish, I would like to express the concept that the replacement of animal protein with vegetable protein, allows the dish to have an equal taste, thus reducing the environmental impact, being also environmentally friendly. I hope, in this way, to succeed in approaching all food intolerances and pathologies that do not always allow the guest to feel free and involved in the free and varied choice of multiple dishes.

This dish revolves around the use of the main part of the ingredients and those of “ scrap “ , nothing is thrown away, rather at the end of each preparation what’s left is used as a base for another recipe. This is to raise consciousness of the Chef on food waste and consequently on the human resources used for the production of raw ingredients.

Synergía is an edible representation of the true essence of a human being: HEART, LIVER and BRAIN, emotion, tenacity and intellect.

It is a visceral dish in which the intimacy of offal brings land and sea together, merging with the inventiveness of the human mind. Served in a replica of the Liver of Piacenza, Synergía pays tribute to the ritual and sacred nature of food while looking towards a bright and radiant future.

It is a signature dish guided not by trends or market forces, but by identity, creativity and passion.

I want to express the connection between memory, place, and transformation. The corn harvest brought families together around the table and, inspired by my grandmother's recipes, I celebrate an ingredient that symbolizes abundance, tradition and a sense of belonging. I use both corn and chicken in their entirety, embracing a whole-ingredient approach. I want to show that gastronomy can honor its roots while evolving through creativity, technique and responsibility.

Give a tribute to Arequipa's Picanterias, Picanterias are places of traditions, good food since the end of the 19th century. Show a bit of the diversity of my country, also let you know ancestral techniques unified with an avant-garde techniques, which the main objective is to give a good experience.

This is an expression of love, honour, affection, subtlety, wisdom, passion and, of course, legacy.
The dish reminds me of my childhood, when at harvest time, mum and dad used to take me and my siblings to harvest the corn cob, remove the amero (corn husk), shuck it and grind it to make envueltos. These wraps had curd in them and we used to accompany them with sweaty fish called catfish and our beautiful Colombian sauce, hogao (sofrito).

This dish explores the dialogue between Eastern and Western dairy cultures through the concept of "Oriental Dairy Coagulation." While the West relies on animal milk, Eastern cuisine transforms soybeans into soy milk, tofu, dried bean curd and soy sauce. Through live soybean processing and the use of soybean residue, I showcase this culinary heritage while highlighting sustainability, paying tribute to one of the pillars of Eastern cuisine.

Inspired by the first book of traditional Chinese medicine, "Huangdi Neijing," which states that food is food when eaten on an empty stomach, but medicine when consumed by patients, I have chosen medicinal herbs such as Poria cocos, japonica rice, Gastrodia elata, and Phyllanthus emblica as the main ingredients, complemented by traditional handcrafted tea. This has led to the creation of a pure vegetarian dish, embodying the concept of food and medicine sharing the same origin.

This dish represents my fond memories and deep affection for the Jiangnan region.The fresh bamboo shoots on the mountains in spring, lotus leaves covers the ponds in summer, golden fields in autumn, and the aroma of cured meats in every courtyard in winter. These are my cherished memories, and I want to share this warmth and beauty through my food.

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.

This dish is inspired by our workplaces garden. Our own grown vegetables and salads combined with chefs knowledge creates Synergy. I would like to use this to entice you choose vegetarian options more often, I believe it’s beneficial for our health and also our environment.I I believe if we consume less meat it would be meaningful change for environment. Chosing locally produced food we decrease transport waist and reduce carbon footprint. Use local produce were possible. Less is more.

Knowledge makes you respect the raw materials, if you know how we produce food we also learn to treat it with respect. Knowledge is power to respect different people, countries and finally the globe.

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.

In New Zealand we have a large number of introduced pests like wild deer that damage our native flora and fauna. By using wild venison we can create an economy for conservation by giving a financial incentive for the pest control. Hunters can sell the meat and chefs can utilise a delicious clean natural protein in the kitchen. I want to show a way to use the whole animal by ulatising the offal & bones in an approachable way for customers. The more we sell creates more money for conservation.

It’s been three years, that I have seen my family due to the pandemic, three years since I've been to my ancestral home in ‘Aurangabad’, a city with a high Muslim population. The very place where I truly appreciated the true diversity of my cuisine and culture.
This dish is an amalgamation of my childhood, my roots and the vision I have to see my cuisine on the global stage amidst all its diverse and colorful glory. Where people do not just tag it as a “curry cuisine” but see it for what it is

The Pig's Alms is a sacred ritual deeply rooted in our country's folklore and tradition, people have forgotten about what it means, it is supposed to be about honoring and showing gratitude toward the animal that has given his life for us to survive. I would like with this dish to bring attention to this lost respect towards nature and what it offers us.The dish's flavours represent my cultural gastronomic heritage and origins, the taste of my home,of my childhood and my memories.

By presenting this dish i would like to convince people that we chefs are not only people that stand for many hours in front of the frying pan. We can all agree that we identify ourselves as artists. Plates for us are like a canvas for a painter. We create and express ourselves on it. Just like Leonardo da Vinci did and others. It’s not only our work but a big passion for life that we want to share with people in the restaurants like artists share their creations in galleries. WE ARE ARTISTS!

It has always been impotant to me that we use every part of our ingredients to fight against food waste, that is why is use whole ducks.It significant to me that we also use the techniques of our ancestors for example preserving,foraging.I dedicate the dish to my family and my childhood.I grew up in the countryside where we kept animals. Duck was also an important part of the family meals.The treasures if the forest, the garden the wild plants were always part of our life.

Raised in Herefordshire, a largely overlooked area producing some of the UK's finest raw ingredients, I have a proudly British identity focussed on celebrating local farmers. I'm working with wild boar from the Forest of Dean due to its local and invasive nature. The dish then boasts the bounty of produce and flavours available from Herefordshire's farmers. Food should be exciting yet approachable, but also sustainable, low-waste and deeply connected to local communities and landscapes.

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.

Having spent so much time designing courses through local and expensive ingredients, I decided to go back to what I grew up eating. Born in South Africa and raised in the UK, a staple of our family meals was South African and this dish is inspired by the spice of the curry. The soft custard and fruits provide textures and softness through out.

From the Valley to the Shoreline reflects my culinary identity as a chef working in Napa Valley. Through wild California razor clams, local verjuice, coastal seaweeds, and vine shoots, I express the connection between land and sea. This dish celebrates local producers, seasonality, and a product-driven approach rooted in French technique while looking toward a more sustainable future for fine dining.

I see the future of cooking as an act of respect for those around you. Care and community are often lost now, but amongst chefs, it will never cease. I believe my role as a chef is to cook honestly, respect the integrity of the ingredient and to share the joy of cooking with as many people as I can. This dish draws inspiration from all that have given me the gift of knowledge, nostalgia and practice. With this dish I hope to honor those gifts and create new experiences as such for others.

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.

With this dish, I want to express the use of poor and reusable raw materials, I have used tripe which is a popular product par excellence, bitter herbs have a very low environmental impact, and roots have always been the sustenance food of the poor.

This dish represents a combination of my view, love and upbringing with food. being thought french cuisine and working with locale produce, loving the purity of japanse food and having roots in indonesia. I strive for balance in flavours and combining the east with the west in unexpected ways. I like to think outside the box with produce without losing the story behind the dish.

This dish represents the Italian immigration in Belgium in the 20th century, for working in the coal mines. My family is from this history. The carbonnade is Belgium, the raviolis is Italy, and the vegetable charcoal the raison of this immigration. I want to cook the pigeon “des Collines”, because it’s an exceptional product but also, it reduces the carbon foothprint instead of using beef.