Amateur chefs compete to represent Hong Kong in young kitchen talent contest

Six young amateur Hong Kong cooks in white jackets and chef’s hats – three of them still in secondary school – were bent over hot stoves preparing two set dishes. As they worked away at soufflé à la Florentine, or spinach soufflé, and roast rack of lamb with garden vegetables, the judges who would adjudicate on their entries circled the kitchen at the Towngas Cooking Centre in Causeway Bay, observing how they performed on food safety, hygiene and food wastage.

WATCH one of the young chefs apply the finishing touches to a dish

A professional chef, Mike Lo, supervised them, periodically telling them to hurry up or reminding them to check their soufflés in the oven.

“They are young chefs and need time for improvement,” said one of the judges, Pauline Wong of Towngas, as she walked around the cooking stations.

When the allotted three hours were up, Lo got the contestants to plate their dishes and presented them in pairs to the judges in a room next door, who would determine which of the six would represent Hong Kong in the regional finals of the Disciples Escoffier Young Talent Trophy.

The contest, for chefs with less than five years’ kitchen experience, is organised by Disciples Escoffier, an association of more than 25,000 chefs devoted to continuing the work of French chef, restaurateur and food writer Georges Auguste Escoffier, who modernised cooking techniques in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Young Talent Trophy is intended to encourage training, leadership development and innovation in young chefs.