Cream of the crop of SA’s young chefs compete for Chefs who Share 2016 Young Chef!

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On Thursday seven young and keen chefs arrived at The Maslow hotel, to compete for the Chefs who Share Young Chef Award 2016. The winning chef will be announced at the Chefs who Share Gala Dinner held at the Johannesburg City Hall this evening.

On Thursday I with Johannesburg writers was invited to a preview of the Canapés created by the seven young chefs, the basis of the judging of the young chefs. The chefs had brought their ingredients with them from Cape Town, Mooi River, Stellenbosch, and Johannesburg, and had two hours in which to prepare the canapés for the midday event. One by one they brought their platters of canapé creation to the table, which were then very eagerly photographed by all writers present, from every angle, something I have never experienced to this heated extent in Cape Town! Each canapé had a description tag, but the chef making it was also given an opportunity to tell us what the ingredients were, and then did a demonstration of the making of it to us.

Tracey Younghusband has played ‘mother’ to the Young Chef Finalists, and was also the Chefs who Share representative who has dealt with all the entries received, and the communication with the entrants, and then the final selection of the seven finalists. In Johannesburg she has guided and directed them in terms of where they have to be at what time until they all return to their respective restaurants on Sunday. Whilst the canapé creation and its recipe, as well as meeting the budget criterion of R25 per canapé, were the initial basis on which the Finalists were selected, the judges will now be evaluating the personality of each of the chefs, and his/her suitability of representing Chefs who Share in our country and internationally, when the winner takes up the prize of working in the kitchen of a Michelin star restaurant, and to spend a week in Champagne.

We were told that the brief to the entrants had been that their canapé creation had to match the essence of Chefs who Share and the artwork which will be auctioned at the Gala dinner tonight. Tonight they will create 120 of their canapés each, to be served to the 252 Gala Dinner guests with the welcome drink. Criteria for entry was that they be 19 – 29 years old, work in a professional restaurant kitchen, be available in Johannesburg from Thursday until tonight, and not only create their canapés but also assist in the cooking for the Gala Dinner alongside the 14 top local and international chefs. Judges for the Finals were Chefs who Share co-founder Florian Gast, Food24 Editor Tessa Purdon, Private Chef and Consultant Jason Whitehead, SWISS Celebrity Chef Reto Mathis (right), Silwood School of Cookery Vice Principal Carianne Wilkinson, Private Chef and Consultant Tracey Younghusband, TV Chef Lentswe Bhengu (left), and Private Chef and Consultant Sue-Ann Allen.

I was invited to join a dinner at The Maslow Hotel last night, to get to know the Chefs who Share Young Chef 2016 Finalists better. The young chefs were invited to attend the dinner in their private clothing. I interviewed some of the Finalists sitting at my table, and we had a good time in hearing some of the restaurant inside stories. Tracey kindly provided the ingredient list of each canapé creation:

# Lee-Andra Govender is the Junior Sous Pastry Chef at Roots at Forum Homini. Her canapé was named ‘Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice’, and consisted of profiteroles, pumpkin mousse, Valrhona 55% chocolate cigars, Americano jelly discs, Dulcey Ganache, and orange streussel. Lee-Andra added a creative touch to her canapés by presenting some in a plate, and the balance on an African artwork wire tree. The execution suffered in that the table wobbled with all the eager food writers taking photographs, and some fell off the tree.

# Blaine Coetzer is the Senior Chef de Partie at Leeu Estate in Franschhoek. His canapé title was ‘When the Ocean meets the Earth’, and was made with Norwegian salmon tartare, beetroot juice, pickled golden beetroots, candied beetroot crisp, squid ink aioli, and squid ink and sesame seed sourdough, finished off with micro beetroot shoots.

# Conrad Van den Heever is an interesting character, and I spent a lot of time talking to him over the dinner. He is strong and confident, yet impressed that he pulled out the chairs for the ladies. He studied at Capsicum. He started right at the bottom, washing pots in a UK Gastropub, until he was offered the opportunity to start cooking, which had been his dream. He grew up in Mooreesburg, and his parents would have liked him to study accountancy, his strong subject at school. He refused! He worked at Odette’s, The Ivy, and The Salt Yard in London. He returned home, and joined Luke Dale-Roberts in opening the Pot Luck Club, and thereafter at The Test Kitchen. He also opened Naturalis with Chef Luke, and made charcuterie and smoked cheeses for it, but it is no longer operating, having originally been planned as a development kitchen. He joined Chef Peter Tempelhoff at Greenhouse as a Senior Sous Chef six months ago. His canapé title is ‘Kiss the Bull’, a play on a cheese and ham sandwich, he explained. It consisted of smoked veal tongue on roast onion and thyme brioche, with purple Sauerkraut, beetroot pickled onion, topped with miso-cured egg yolk, 12 month Huguenot Creme Catalan, and raisin jam.

# Anand Bhana is the Junior Sous Chef at Hartford House, and is the only chef to have made the Finals twice in a row. He is an exceptional plater, as I have experienced when staying at Hartford House. His canapé was named ‘Essences of Duck’, being a Wonton cone filled with duck liver parfait, duck ham, olive soil, and lime and ginger gel. The cone was placed in the neck of a small bottle of duck dashi, to which had been attached a colourful red and white straw. His canapé creation was out of the box in its design, and differed in size and concept to the other six canapé creations.

# David Graham-Parker is the Junior Chef de Partie at Level Four restaurant at 54 on Bath. He chose Consumer Studies as a subject at school, in which they were taught cooking basics, a popular subject even amongst the male learners, David said. He studied cheffing at HTA in Johannesburg, and then started at Level Four restaurant, where he has been for the past three years. He started at the bottom, and has worked his way up the ladder. Next month he moves to the new Chef David Higgs restaurant Marble. His canapé was a savory black waffle, with cured confit pork belly, compressed apple julienne, fynbos honey pearls, and pork crackling, garnished with pea tendrils.

# Anthonie van Zyl is Commis Chef at Tokara in Stellenbosch, and told me that he studied at Hearst Campus on Backsberg wine estate. He did his internship at Babylonstoren and at Boschendal, whereafter he started working at Tokara. His first love is pastry, and bread baking in particular. His canapé was described as a biltong-flavoured beef tartare, with carrot chips, salted apricot, yoghurt, and egg yolk, on a Gruyére lemon and thyme biscuit.

# Elize Benson is the Senior Chef de Partie at Roots at Forum Homini, and is a colleague of Lee-Andrea Govender, the first time that two Finalists come from the same restaurant. Her canapé is called ‘Corn de Cab’, with a sweet corn macaron as the base, with squid ink purée, avocado mousse, ponzu gel, burnt corn, cured salmon rolled in fine ash, crispy salmon skin, and topped with a squid ink macaron.

The highlight for the Young Chef Finalists is that they have each been allocated to one of the seven chef teams preparing the Gala Dinner tonight. Elize Benson is working alongside Chefs Margot Janse and Veneet Bhatia; Lee-Andrea Govender is working with Chefs Candice Philip and Piet Huysentruyt; Conrad Van den Heever is cooking with Chefs Dirk Gieselmann and Veronica Canha-Hibbert; Anand Bhana is cooking with Chefs Chris Erasmus and Michael Cooke; Blaine Coetzer has been allocated to Chefs Ronald Ramsamy and Jocelyn Myers-Adams; and David Graham-Parker is cooking with Chefs Christo Pretorius ànd Vincent Rodier.

The ability of the Young Chef Finalists to take instructions from the top senior local and international chefs will be taken into consideration in the selection of the Chefs who Share Young Chef 2016, who will be announced at the end of the Gala Dinner tonight.

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