Kiwi chef Peter Gunn has been crowned the winner of the Pacific round of the San Pellegrino Young Chef competition. He'll head to Milan in June to compete with 19 others for the world title.
To make the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants is considered the pinnacle of a chef's career. But between picking up a knife for the first time and making that list is a long, slow process for any chef. Until now there had never been a competition that nurtures emerging talent. So this year the company launched a new Young Chef awards.
The first round of semi-finals is underway, semi-finalists from Asia have already been selected. Yesterday Peter's dish of beef short ribs with roast celery vinaigrette had judges raving.
Peter Gunn's signature dish - Cape Grimshaw beef short rib with roast celery vinaigrette and garlic flowers.
The Herald had exclusive access to the kitchens and judging. Judge Peter Gilmore, whose old restaurant Quay made previous World 50 lists, was ecstatic about Peter's dish.
Peter is from Attica, the only Australian restaurant on the Top 50 and run by a fellow Kiwi, Ben Shewry. The experience showed.
"I've thought about it, I just can't fault it," added Guy Grossi. Both judges are well known to MasterChef viewers, but their demeanor to their fellow professionals - rather than telly wannabes - couldn't have been more warm. No dramas here.
Along with chief judge and mentor Jacques Reymond, whose eponymous French restaurant has dominated the Melbourne food scene for 24 years, Peter Doyle (of Est) and Giovanni Pilu (of Pilu), they circled the kitchen quizzing the contestants, prodding at ingredients, commenting on techniques. The 10 chefs - three from New Zealand - had to recreate their signature dishes using ingredients sourced at Melbourne markets that day in a comfortable two hours.
Sourcing ingredients wasn't as easy as you'd expect in foodie capital, Melbourne. Third place winner Chris Chilvers brought South Australian foraged sea succulents with him, third runner up William Mordido of Henderson's Chikos had to rummage Asian shops for pandan leaves to serve with his modern take on Filipino halo halo dessert.
Even winner Peter, a local of six years now, had to substitute garlic for onion flowers in his final dish.
Peter Gunn shows off his skills in front of the judges.
Feedback to the competitors was frank, but encouraging. Judges were particularly tough on over-doing a dish, again and again telling the young chefs to pull back on garnishes. They were particularly tough on chefs mixing fruit with fish, being too slow plating and not keeping things simple.
"Peter's dish was the most simple, the most elegant and the most balanced," said Reymond. "It was wonderful."
Peter will now work with Reymond to refine the signature dish to present to the panel of famous international chefs in Milan.
