In 2020, S.Pellegrino Young Chef Africa & Middle East regional winner, Paul Thinus Prinsloo, talked about making it that far in the competition, learning from his mistakes, and the preparation needed for success.
The prestigious S.Pellegrino Young Chef took place over the course of two years, challenging young chefs from all over the globe to come up with a signature dish that would impress judges selected from the highest levels of the global gastronomy scene. The S.Pellegrino Young Chef Africa & Middle East Regional took place in October in Cape Town, and the winner was Paul Thinus Prinsloo, chef de partie at The Restaurant at Waterkloof. Normally, he would have been gearing up for the Grand Finale, which was scheduled to take place in Milan in May, competing against the 11 other regional winners for the S. Pellegrino Young Chef 2020 title. This had been postponed to later in the year (date to be confirmed).
Paul took the time to tell more about his experience of the international culinary competition so far and how it first captured his imagination.
“When I started at Waterkloof, one of my colleagues was busy doing a dish for S.Pellegrino Young Chef. I went to read about it and found it interesting that there was a competition that promoted young chefs to such an extent on the international scene, so I decided to give it a shot.”
The first time he entered, his signature dish got him to the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Africa & Middle East region in Dubai, but there he found himself unprepared for the demands of such a high-level competition. “I was way too cocky. I didn’t do nearly enough practice and, lacking confidence, thought I’d smash it quickly with a cold dish that I was familiar with and that didn’t require too much cooking. I didn’t make it.”
He immediately decided he would enter again for the 2020 edition and do it properly the second time around. “I started working on a dish, and by the time the entries opened, I already knew what I wanted to do and how it was going to look.”
Paul submitted his Bouillabaisse 2.0 signature dish, and this time didn’t sit back. Once he knew he’d been selected, he practiced his dish against time. This is where the role of the mentor came into its own for him, a role that was fundamental to the S.Pellegrino philosophy of nurturing and growing the talent of young chefs in the industry as a whole.
Paul chose Gregory Czarnecki (Executive Chef at The Restaurant at Waterkloof) as his mentor. He’d already conceptualized, created, and submitted his dish by himself. “At the end of the day, it still had to be me on the plate,” he said. Where the mentorship came in was in making refinements to the execution of the dish. “Instead of the bouillabaisse sauce being a consommé, he suggested making it a beurre monté, instead of oven-baking the fish, he suggested poaching it, and we made a few minor changes to perfect the presentation,” Paul explained. A mentor was also a huge support in the mental preparation for the competition. “He made me practice my dish once a week over 8 weeks within the five-hour timeline, then he’d taste it and give feedback to work on until we were both entirely happy.”
This mental preparation helped hugely in transitioning from his own kitchen to the pressure of the competition space, he said. “At the regional, I walked into the cooking school and found we’d be cooking on induction tops, which I’d never cooked a full dish with before, so it was a challenge. But because I’d practiced so much, I knew I was ready. I’d worked out my time schedule and stuck to that.”
Paul’s advice to other young chefs:
• Practice your dish many times.
• Give yourself a limited space to practice. He restricted himself to two gas burners when practicing, and that helped a lot.
• Practice cooking it in less than the allowed time, so you have half an hour at the end for finishing off and plating.
Paul’s preparation for the Grand Finale would have started once the new date had been set. “I’d have been practicing cooking my dish in even less time, four hours instead of five, so that I’d have time to fix anything that went wrong. And working on my presentation.” The pressure would have been on for the final, cooking for such an eminent panel of judges. “It’s not often you get the opportunity to present a dish to the head chef of the number one restaurant in the world. So to try and wow them would have been a big thing. There wouldn’t have been time for any error.”
The S. Pellegrino Young Chef competition provided an opportunity otherwise unavailable to most young South African chefs, to be nurtured and promoted on the international gastronomy scene, and Paul was determined to make the most of it.
