Fine Dining Lovers
Food for Thought Award

This dish is a part of a project I’m working on known as ‘Food over conflicts. It represents the hardworking saffron growing community back home in Kashmir which has been struggling for the last few years due to political conflicts. Also, it reflects the part of India where I grew up close to the world’s largest Mangrove Sundarban where native berries flowers and honeycomb are produced. Although, it’s on the verge of an environmental disaster and will no longer exist if it’s not treated well.

This dish to me means that with the right intention to create a more dynamic and sustainable environment in our lives we can understand more how other cultures work and I want to bring them together in one single plate showing and expressing my roots where I grew up combined with the knowledge and techniques acquired during my career living abroad. Through my dish I hope to express diversity that we can connect more and with that I really hope to achieve what San Pellegrino is looking for.

While growing up my father (who was also a chef) and I took up a lot of hobbies together, gardening being one of them, so this dish is just some of the many ingredients that grew in our garden. This dish always brings a smile to my face, as it reminds me of the valuable lessons he taught me. This dish is very close to my heart as it reminds me to be proud of my heritage and to never forget where I come from.

My dish express the different cultures and what can be made with fresh, colorful and organic ingredients. The smoke and charcoal represent the growth of humanity; from the earliest times these ingredients were used for a better taste and represents the evolution of creativity. This dish was created with the intention to represent the ancient history of Hong Kong gastronomy, the nature and its ancestors.

I made a dish made of vegetables only, techniques that I used in meat, I used in my vegetarian dish. Fishy topinambur, laurel parsnip puree, marinated salicornia; I was able to win the internship in a restaurant and in this competition I come back to it with still greater awareness.

I am trying to represent an lobster’s habitat through the colours of the dish. There is almost zero waste of the products and this is the message that I want to transmit to the culinary world. I chose the blue lobster as it is a main french product and the artichoke as a vegetable that can be found in almost every season. I think that vegetables are very important nowadays and that's the reason why it has the same importance in my dish as the lobster. Finally the sauce is a marriage of both.

It took me around half a year to find the right product for my dish among a rich variety of seafood in Russia. I draw inspiration from my childhood memories: a taste of the Omul, that surpassed every expectation, a nice aftertaste of Kamchatckan shrimp, exceptionally aromatic Black Sea mussels and an unforgettable lingering savouriness of cod liver. Those products compelled me to create this dish. The hardest part was to combine seafood with root vegetables that have been always widely used in Russia.

As a Filipino immigrant who grew up in a urban melting pot with a rich and diverse culture of the city of Toronto I wanted this dish to reflect who I am as a cook. Taking my first early childhood food inspirations from my family and combining them with the technique and skills I've learned  from my most important chef mentors. I want this dish to represent who I was as a child to the progression and journey I made as a young cook to the chef I am today by highlighting Canadian ingredients. 

Through this dish I want to celebrate the importance of Canary's products in world gastronomy. We have a lot of products like "cochino negro" or dishes like "rancho Canario" that people in Spain don't know. In this dish I decided to use simple products typical of the Canarian tradition like potato or mojo verde and show that is possible to elevate them to fine dining.

With this dish I would like to show the harmony I have when I cook.
I'm Roman and I really care about my origins, so I've been inspired by Ancient Rome.
I discovered that a dish they loved was the pigeon with dates and peaches, and also the use of garum was widespread. 
I decided to propose it in my own way without distorting what the products are and the goodness of the raw material that nature offers us.
Good food, nice and healthy with memories.

The dish uses resilient ingredients that are cultivated or foraged from the arid desert of Rajasthan, India. The elements of the dish take inspiration from communities and cuisines that are integral parts of the culinary heritage of the state. This dish is a celebration of a traditional food culture, that in a harsh geographical context, has allowed people to sustain and thrive for centuries.

"His yellow flesh was made of yellow corn ...", this is how he talks about the creation of man, one of our most important books; the Popol Vuh, so we are forming in the womb. This dish is the representation of a maternal kitchen, the kitchen that cares, that protects; it is a small homage to corn, a noble ingredient of the people. The craft while a woman covered in a rebozo, showing the warmth of Mom and over it is a tamale that is an icon of our country, Mexico.