Regional Finalists 2022-23

Through this dish, I express Japan’s Satoyama culture, a way of life rooted in the coexistence of people and nature. Festivals, prayers for abundant harvests, care for the environments that provide food, and cooperation within rural communities are values deeply embedded in Japanese society. As a chef, I believe cuisine must begin with an awareness of the ecosystems that sustain our ingredients. Satoyama is a philosophy I wish to share with the world and a model for the future of cooking.

My favorite childhood dish is Assam Laksa. To me, the beauty of this dish is the combination of flaky fish melding together with the herbaceous, acidic, spicy, sweet umami broth with nuggets of larger sized fish meat. My version of Assam Laksa utilizes homemade traditional rempah enhanced with fish garum & fish-bone stock & laksa leaf oil with a mosaic made of Kingfish and Farce using the fish trimmings served with Ginger Flower Sorbet and Fish Skin-Yuba Tuile topped w Native Herbs and Salsa.

In February 2023, just before opening my restaurant, we visited a bee farm in Koh Samui and saw unused beeswax being discarded. Inspired, I created a sustainable dish that minimizes waste. Using locally sourced fish, I perfected a beeswax cooking method for the fillet and transformed every part of the fish into unique components. This plate is a harmonious blend of Thai flavors, Italian influences, and global experiences.

With this dish, I want my diverse immigrant family background and the fact I do not identify with one food culture, to show what can be done with modern ideas and less. I want to improve myself and develop tight portion control, recipe control, “waste” utilisation, and an insane passion for food. I want to demonstrate my vision of fine dining cooking, which is to cook as local, zero waste, and as ethically as I can while still keeping deliciousness. I want to put food into bellies, not bins.

This dish is my brainchild of what my soul would look like on a plate, the mousse of the Meat Beliram is a connection to my roots in Punjab and also how I made the move to Canada by packing just my knives and my clothes. The eel is one of the first ingredients I fell in love with. The morels are the abundant wilderness of Canada and the sauce and kachori lend the child in me with flavor's which I grew up as a child, never wanting to be a chef but later loving every bit of it.

Vegan food, through methodology and expertise, belongs on the world stage. Vegetables can be a complete substitute for any animal product. Vegan forward diets reduce factory farming practices, and when we eat meat, we should source local and ethically raised products.
Fallon recognized the harsh realities of raising cattle. She realized cultivating mushrooms was the way of the future. These are generational farmers who shifted their focus for the environment, their courage deserves recognition.

The Char is a fish which lives directly in our alpine lakes in Ladis. So the main ingredient stands for my home town. The char is served in 2 different styles. Once as "Cordon Bleu" and once stained. With the dish i would like to show, that it´s possible to connect typical ingredients and tastes from my home town with tastes and ingredients from all over the world. So the whole world on "one plate".

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.

With this dish, I present my homeland on a plate and showcase my Bavarian/Franconian roots with typical components from pub cuisine. My motto is to make pub cuisine special and fresh in its simplicity. Classic Bavarian cuisine is known for its heaviness and richness. However, I want to show that it can also be dynamic, light and appealing without losing its traditional charm.

I have always been fascinated by what grows around me and the techniques different cultures have developed to bring out the best of their terroir. This dish celebrates that curiosity through trout from lac léman and carrots and herbs from our farm. Drawing on techniques learned through my travels across Asia and Europe, and from my grandmother, I use every part of the produce—from peels to carcasses—to reduce waste and create a cuisine that is sustainable, delicate, and harmonious.

As I grew up in Saint-Raphael, fish soup had an emblematic place in my family. My father, a fish lover, observed changes in the sea ecosystem: pollution, destruction of the biodiversity and diminution of the quantity of fish. We can’t keep our old habits by cooking without thinking about the consequences. I don’t want to forget the taste of Provence so I invented a new recipe that take into account these issues. More ethical ways can be taken to archive the emotional memory of taste.

I believe cooking must connect cultures responsibly, and I want my cuisine to promote sustainability while revealing invisible links between traditions. This is why I chose pork and crayfish, two iconic proteins from both Alsace and China that we can use without threatening protected species. Besides, the sides blend distinct markers from both heritages. My final objective is to create a refined dialogue between both regions and show that Alsace and China share a common culinary language.

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.

On our plate, we unite the gastronomic tradition of Mallorca and Menorca, highlighting local products with a sustainable approach. We believe that every chef should work with what they have at home, respecting the environment. Our passion for Mediterranean cuisine drives us to create unique culinary experiences, combining tradition and innovation.

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.

'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.

I really like being able to eat soup, in a cold version, even in summer or hot days.
The earthy elements are balanced by the different acidities present in the dish; the accompanying drink has the role of recalling the classic Borsch broth while introducing a contrast linked to the ph of the drink itself which makes tasting the dish more fun in the mouth.

Through a reciprocal Surf & Turf, grey mullet, a humble fish, is enhanced by leche de tigre and a crunchy polenta crust, paired with the rustic intensity of cacciatora sauce. In the side dish bold carpaccio meets the savory freshness of mullet bottarga sauce. The plating setup is crafted in 3D from recycled materials. Moving from the sea to the lake, the entire concept aims to raise awareness about sea pollution through the powerful medium of cuisine at my disposal and describes my own identity.

The hen is the base of one of our emblematic typical dishes: the sancocho, a soup that is eaten at any time and on any occasion, it is cooked in firewood causing the soup to have smoky notes. It was with this idea that this dish was born, as I was curious about how to use the little parts of it, such as the neck, how the food ferments inside the gizzard and how through the use of one hundred per cent of the ingredients.

As a proud young Mexican chef, I honor my roots through local ingredients and ancestral traditions. Inspired by Oaxaca’s rich culinary heritage, my dish expresses identity, memory, and resilience. It celebrates Latin American unity by highlighting our shared history, vibrant diversity, hard work and the beauty that emerges when our cultures come together through flavor.

This dish embodies the richness of the Yucatán Peninsula. Through it, I want to portray the union between sea and land, and how that connection has shaped both my character and my approach as a chef. It brings together ingredients from the sea and from the backyards and ka’anches of local communities, highlighting the efforts of those who continue to cultivate the land and preserve its traditions. The concept behind the dish reflects my vision of how we can coexist with both the past and present of cuisine.

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.

This dish is inspired by my journey across China, from Kashgar to Hami in Xinjiang China, where I gathered inspiration from what I saw, heard, and experienced. It incorporates a variety of Xinjiang ingredients and cooking techniques, expressing my love for the region. I used the spice rub from Xinjiang's traditional whole roasted lamb to slow-cook the Xinjiang Altay lamb eye meat over charcoal, resulting in a flavorful dish.

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.
 

I believe the most honest cooking is an act of memory. This dish lives in my grandmother's quintal in Curitiba, a garden that grew everything we needed. No protein at the centre, just herbs, fruits, and vegetables. I am a chef shaped not by culinary degree, but by proximity, repetition, and the daily act of being fed by someone who loved me.

We are taught that sacrifice is the only way to perfection, that the expense of people is a normal part of being a chef. That the best produce is from the other part of the world and that waste is an exception for fine dining. I believe that sustainability contains so much more than just local vegetables. Its also about leadership, a good working environment and treating ourselves with respect. Respect the people, respect the produce, respect the process. Respect the world.

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.

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.

The main purpose of this dish is to change the misconception that exists in some beef offal's, in this case "sweetbread", considered an exquisite treat in my country, Argentina, however not so pleasant in other cultures. Through childhood flavors I aim to encourage people to experience something different by creating a beautiful dish with colors that pique curiosity to try. And encourage sustainability by utilizing part of the cow that are often considered waste as sweetbread and tendons.

A personal take on the movement of food is one of humble beginnings and humble endings. Between those two points lies what I believe as a chef. Rice congee is simple, traditional, and inexpensive, yet can be elevated without losing its origins. The same is true of the tart. I started with everyday vegetables and, at the end, made exactly that. In between, I transformed them into something special, then returned them to something recognisable. That is the essence of my cooking.

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!

The day Slovenia proclaimed its independence the Linden tree was planted in front of the National Assembly building, since then it became our symbol for freedom. Brown trout is the most common fish of our rivers and this dish is the love song to Slovenia. I used only trout, linden in different ways, salt, and honey to prove you can make a dish with minimum carbon footprint, humble and basic ingredients but has a complex flavor profile. Whole dish is served on a set of fallen local linden tree.

This dish is my culinary signature and a tribute to Slovenia. It features ingredients deeply rooted in our land and the collective memory of our people. Reflecting where I grew up and create today, the plate mirrors my evolution as a chef. My goal is to make modern gastronomy approachable, telling a story that is simple yet complex, boutique yet intriguing. Through the lens of the past, these elements narrate our present and forecast a future where modern dining feels like home to everyone.

This dish is all about a recreation of a happy memory growing up and getting a nostalgic feeling. Cooking and food to me is all about a mixture of new discovery and connecting to a different place, a different time, a memory, a feeling. When I was growing up my mother would take me to my nanny's place and she would always be in the kitchen making something. Two standout dishes I remember always helping her with were her Veranicki's which are a Russian perogy and borscht. We would sit for hours chopping vegetables, stuffing veranickis, and spending time together at her table. The recipe for the dough is her fathers recipe and I wanted to do a bit of a modern take on the classic dough and by adding elements of borscht through dill, beetroots, and creme fraiche throughout the dish. The duck parts of the dish are a more recent memory of moving half way around the world to come work in London at The Ritz Hotel. One of the most memorable dish's that we serve at The Ritz is the Duck a la Presse. The theater and level of service makes this more than just a dish, but creates an everlasting memory to anyone who would order it. Even the people around would remember it, it's so special.

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.

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.

I believe great cuisine is created through balance: honoring tradition while embracing new influences. My foundation comes from French training in Paris, where I became fascinated by the Japanese influence on modern French cuisine, particularly its emphasis on seasonality, restraint, and clarity of flavor. Through peak-season cherries, plums, and duck, this dish reflects my belief that the most meaningful cooking comes from respecting the season and allowing ingredients to speak for themselves.

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.

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”

I chose this dish to enhance the Italian tradition, to combine a poor dish like Tuscan fish soup and Grano Arso flour, made with fish and crop waste products, with the technique and refinement of a gastronomic restaurant, in order to have a dish that tastes like home in an elegant and refined style.

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.

My cuisine is driven by the desire to challenge the traditional hierarchy of the plate. With this dish, the vegetable becomes the centre of the narrative — not as an alternative to protein, but as the primary expression of flavour. Through different techniques, I explore depth, texture, and emotion. The kingfish takes on a supporting role, bringing salinity and umami without dominating. Every part of the ingredient is valued to create a balanced dialogue between elements.