“We’re not after celebrity chefs, we’re looking for young people who work in the industry, doing it on the ground every day,” tells Christopher Thé to SBS Food.
The owner of Sydney’s Black Star Pastry has launched the competition with a few partners to propel the career of a talented and passionate young pastry chef.
One finalist from each state will be flown to Sydney for a cook-off where they’ll make one dessert. Thé advises he’s looking for good cooking, not technical brilliance or intricate decorations: “It doesn’t need to be the most technical dish, we’re after people who cook beautifully, simply, deliciously and with heart.”
The winner will be crowned 2018 Australian Young Pastry Chef Champion and receive an all-expense-paid trip to Italy to visit leading patisseries in the region and present a cooking demonstration at the SIGEP Bakery trade show in Rimini.
How can you be a winner?
To be eligible, you must be under 34 years old on 19 March 2018. While you don’t need to be a qualified pastry chef, you must currently be working in hospitality.
When applying online, you’ll need to answer questions like “Who is your cooking hero?” and “What’s the most difficult dessert you ever made?”. You’ll also have to write about the cake or pastry that you’ll make for the competition (what is it, how long it takes to make, what makes it special, etc.) and provide a photo.
The finalists will be announced on 23 March and will be invited to a master class with Thé, before the cook-off on 21 April.
Thé’s word of advice
Despite completing studies in psychology, Thé fell in love with cooking and started working in kitchens as soon as he left university: “It’s the most natural thing for me, it feels like meditation almost.”
He left the fine dining scene ten years ago to open his own boutique patisserie in Newtown, .
Since then, he has opened three other shopfronts in Sydney and created , the light and fragrant strawberry watermelon cake. “I’ve created many things, but this is the one I’m the proudest of. It’s rare that a chef has the opportunity to create something that becomes part of the food culture,” he says.
But if he were to enter the Australian Young Pastry Chef Champion competition, he wouldn’t make his famous cake.
“I would just bake the perfect tarte Tatin: Perfect pastry, perfectly cooked caramelised apple and a quenelle of crème fraiche or whipped cream,” he says. “That’s the kind of cooking we’re after. This kind of cooking is actually very hard to do well.”
Think about your most delicious and simple recipe and get the mixing bowls out, you have .
