08/09/17
All the latest: finalists and upcoming competitions
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UPDATE 14/05/2018: The wait is over - the winner of S.Pellegrino Young Chef has finally been crowned! Discover which rising star took home the honour of winning S.Pellegrino Young Chef 2018 and watch all the young chefs of the competition in the 4 live streaming episodes covering the S.Pellegrino Young Chef 2018 Grand Finale: a true display of extraordinary passion, skill and determination of the new talents in the world of gastronomy.
UPDATE 02/05/2018: Read the line-up of the Seven Sages, the top jury of world-class chefs who will crown the S.Pellegrino Young Chef 2018.
UPDATE 29/11/2017: All the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Local Finals are now concluded and all the 21 finalists have been selected. Find out more about the finalists, look at their signature dishes and follow the interviews with their mentor chefs.
The S.Pellegrino Young Chef 2018 semi-finalists have been named, the local juries selected and the Local Competitions are gathering momentum around the world.
Each of the 21 world regions have already or are in the process of preparing the stage for the semi-finalists to compete in their own exciting local competitions over the coming months.
During this preliminary round 210 world semi-finalists, 10 per region, will be whittled down to just 21, one young chef per region, to go forward to the ultimate challenge at the Grand Finale.
Local Competitions 2017
The local competitions are judged by a local jury, a panel of professional chefs selected from some of the world’s best restaurants in their respective regions.
The panel of experts have the challenging task of evaluating the ten semi-finalists, originally selected by Alma culinary school, in a live cook off where only the best young chef will succeed.
Each young chef will produce their signature dish which will be tasted and assessed by the chef panel against the Golden Rules:
- Ingredients
- Skill
- Genius
- beauty and message.
The young chef to best respond to these criteria will be crowned winner for their region.
So far, four regions have experienced the thrill of the live culinary challenge:
Falko Weiss won for Germany and Austria with his dish entitled city/land/river inspired by his homeland. Weiss will be mentored by chef Karlheinz Hauser up until the final.
Constadina Voulgari took gold in the regional contest for the Mediterranean Countries with her partridge led signature dish: “Ellinon Gefsis” She will be led by mentor chef Nikos Roussos up to the grand Finale.
David Wälti, sous chef at the “Eisblume” restaurant in Worb won the Swiss finals fending off nine other young talents in his country with his signature dish of head to tail from Swiss mountain salmon trout with vegetables.
Elizabeth Puquio Landeo, Chef de Partie at 'Ambrosía Restaurante' in Santiago, Chile will represent Latin America with her dish Pescado De La Costa and will be mentored by chef Rafael Osterling (Rafael and El Mercado).
The intensity ramps up in the coming weeks in September as semi-finalists in Italy, Pacific, France, Russia CIS, China and Benelux each battle for a place in their local competitions.
In October semi-finalists in Canada, Central America, UK and Ireland, Japan, USA, East Europe, South East Asia, Scandinavia Baltics and Africa Middle East will have their opportunity to cook for a place in the Grand Finale.
In November, the remaining two world regions left to compete, North East Asia and Spain and Portugal will each select their winners during the live local cooking competition.
The Challenge Ahead
As the local competitions unfold around the world, we will keep you up to date with all the news and the names of each of the finalists as and when they are revealed, with a list of all the winners being complete at the end of December 2017.
Those talented young chef winners fortunate enough to succeed will have an even greater advantage in this competition than on passed years, given they will have extra time to work closely with their nominated professional mentor chef before the final.
The Grand Finale – May 2018
When the local competitions are complete by the end of 2017, the 21 young chef finalists will have time to hone their dishes and refine their skills under the tutelage of their mentor chef in the build up to the Grand Finale in the first six months of 2018.
During an intense week of competition, the young chefs will cook their signature dishes for a panel of some of the world’s most esteemed chefs, last year’s panel included Gaggan Anand, Elena Arzak, Mauro Colagreco, Carlo Cracco, Wylie Dufresne, David Higgs and Roberta Sudbrack.
In May 2018, the best young chefs from around the world will travel to Milan, Italy, along with their chef mentors and compete under the spotlight on the world stage.