This Singaporean chef bagged a top three spot at the prestigious San Pellegrino Young Chef Competition

Under the dim lights of an airplane hangar-turned-art space in Milan last week, one Singaporean chef made waves by placing among the top three at the finals of the San Pellegrino Young Chefs Competition 2022 to 2023. Twenty-nine-year-old Ian Goh beat 14 other international finalists on Oct 5 to share the podium with fellow runner-up French representative Camille Saint M’leux and winner Nelson Freitas from Lisbon, Portugal who represented the Iberian Countries.

Goh, a sous chef of the Michelin-starred modern Korean restaurant Nae:um in Singapore, was accompanied by his chef-mentor Dave Pynt of feted barbeque restaurant Burnt Ends.

For young chefs in the fine dining realm, the San Pellegrino Young Chefs Competition is the equivalent of the Olympics. It attracts hundreds of talented young cooks from around the world, all eager to prove that they can make a difference in the world of gastronomy. Placing in the competition is a surefire way to accelerate their professional development while fast tracking access the top tier of the chef community.

Like the Olympics, the competition calls for hundreds of hours of training, not only to hone cooking techniques and research, but also to get comfortable with the uncomfortable, something Pynt focused on pushing Goh towards.“Dave made sure that I trained in many different kitchens to make the situation as uncomfortable as possible. That way I wouldn’t be so shellshocked on (competition) day. With the scale of this event, the nerves will surely come, but now I’m not afraid of unfamiliar surroundings,” Goh told me the day before his presentation to the Grand Jury which included world-renowned chefs Nancy Silverton, Vicky Lau, Pia Leon, Riccardo Camanini and Helene Darroze.

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO ONE DISH

Goh’s dish, Heritage Lamb, is a celebration of his Hainanese roots. It comprised numerous components including a chap chye-inspired cabbage dumpling stuffed with made-from-scratch lamb bacon, pickled black fungus, and pickled black carrots. This was served with a Hainanese mutton consomme which the judges had high praises for. The dish also comprised a tile of black vinegar-braised lamb belly, a morsel of lamb saddle served with raisin and mint chutney, and a cucumber salad in oyster vinaigrette.

On presentation day, the young chefs were given five hours to cook their dish before a 15-minute presentation to the judges. While the five hours and 15 minutes were all the audience was able to witness, the competition stretched for more than a year for its contestants: Last October, Goh — under the mentorship of his boss, Nae:um’s chef-owner Louis Han, who encouraged him to join the competition — beat nine other Young Chefs from Asia in the regional finals held in Bangkok.

THEY’VE COME A LONG WAY

Goh and his dish have evolved much in the last year. Pynt said: “Ian had an idea and concept of what to do (for the dish). It was very rough, so to speak. We’ve taken a long journey to go from there to here.”

That journey involved arranging for Goh to learn how to break down a whole lamb from a butcher at Butcher Box and engaging with almost 70 of Singapore’s finest culinary minds including Eve Felder, managing director of The Culinary Institute of America in Singapore; Kevin Wong, chef-owner of the Michelin-starred Seroja and former contestant of the same competition; experienced chefs like Will Goldfarb; and the team from Goh’s alma mater SHATEC.

“Having a combination of so many great minds really made the subtleties shine. Having that broad perspective of many people giving similar suggestions made an amazing product,” Pynt added.

“Looking back over the last year, the dish and my techniques have become very refined,” Goh said. “I’m a laidback individual and chef Dave is very driven. He made me very uncomfortable and I mean that in the best possible way. He’s pushed me to limits I’ve never experienced in any of the kitchens I’ve worked for. By working with him, I have more of a drive to succeed.”

A REFLECTION OF SINGAPORE’S DINING SCENE

This is not the first time a Singapore representative has made it to the top three in the San Pellegrino Young Chefs Competition. In the 2019 to 2021 edition, Seroja’s Kevin Wong also placed in the top three. In the two years since, he has gone on to earn one Michelin star for Seroja and bagged Singapore’s Michelin Guide Young Chef Award 2023.

The success of these young chefs reflects Singapore’s standing as an international dining capital. “Singapore’s dining scene has definitely taken a huge jump forward in the last few years,” said Pynt. “I think having young talents like Kevin and Ian nurtured in Asia is very important. What’s on offer in Singapore is pretty incredible and over time, when you have a restaurant or eating culture that supports creativity and amazing products, these restaurants and (the community) can build platforms to give the next generation of chefs the opportunity to develop their own style… and to build something new, exciting and relevant across the globe.”

Elated and exhausted after his win, Goh said: “If nothing else, I’ve tried something I’ve never done before. I’ve push myself to breaking point, but it was worth it. If I’d never met chef Dave or chef Louis, I would just be a run-of-the-mill chef and never done something like this. It’s made me a much stronger individual than I was two years ago.”

The next day, Goh was off on a well-deserved holiday with his family in Bologna before a belated honeymoon with his Thai wife Arunrat Likitmungmongkol, a 36-year-old sous chef at Resorts World Sentosa.