Last Sunday 25th September the final of Irelands Best Young chefs 2022 took place in the Inter continental hotel in Dublin. The Euro-Toques Young Chef of the Year competition is Ireland’s premier cooking awards for young chefs. The competition seeks to recognise nurture and educate the amazing raw culinary talent Ireland has to offer.
The purpose of the competition is, to ensure that the next generation of chefs will be passionate about the tradition of Irish cooking as well as keen to experiment and continue to develop the trends set by world-renowned Irish chefs in their own unique way.
The finalists, the restaurants where they are working and the mentors working with them are listed below. But what we are most excited about is that three of the young chefs used Velvet Cloud yogurt in one of their dishes in the final competition.
How incredible is it that three of the very best young chefs in the country consider Velvet Cloud yogurt an ingredient worth including in a dish, in such a prestigious competition that is gong to change their lives. We didn’t sponsor the competition in any way, (in fact we didn’t know Velvet Cloud was going to be used at all !). The chefs were told to devise two original dishes — a main course based on Achill lamb and offal with grains and spices, and an original dessert using Irish raspberries.
The three Velvet Cloud yogurt dishes were
Shauna Murphy – Adare Manor
Lamb leg with zaatar orange ginger carrot, oat groat lemon sheep’s milk yoghurt and sheep’s milk whey sauce
Leticia Miranda - Mae Restaurant
Achill Mountain Lamb leg glazed 50°C, artichoke, Riversfield Farm's organic courgette pickle and Velvet Cloud yoghurt spheres
Attila Galambos - Aniar
Irish raspberries with velvet sheep yogurt, jumbo oats
The finalists in the competition were:
Eoghan O'Flynn (Liss Ard Estate / Alex Petit)
David Condon (The Shelbourne/ Andrew Sommefeldt)
Calum Falls (Aimsir / Jordan Bailey)
Victor Franca (Nua Asador/Ross Lewis)
Attila Galambos (Aiar / JP McMahon)
Leticia Miranda (Mae Restaurant /Grainne OKeefe)
Shauna Murhpy (Adare Manor /Killian Bowen)
Huge congratulations to the winner Calum Falls of Aimsir
And credit to Julie Calderpots for the superb photography