Winner of SPYCA Regional Final for Mainland China Announced

The winner of the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy Competition regional final for Mainland China has been announced, and it is Yi Zhang.

Yi Zhang impressed the local judges – Jacqueline Qiu, Zhang Yong, DeAille Tam, Stefan Stiller and Stefano Bacchelli – with her signature dish, A Trip to Guangxi, which also won the young chef the S.Pellegrino Award for Social Responsibility. Zhang will now go on to represent her region at the Grand Finale in Milan.

Describing the dish, Yi Zhang said: “I want to memorise my first trip to Guangxi - a mountainous region with rich cultural resources. Bamboo there is an important material. I went to several villages deep in the mountains. The weather makes moss grow everywhere. People there are poor and still using self-made charcoal for cooking and staying warm, so the smell of smoke hung in the air. But what touched me is their kindness. This is a vegetarian dish, the flavour of my dish is based on a famous noodle in Guangxi, called Old Friend noodle, and I use some fermented ingredients which are also common in Guangxi cuisine.”

Other awards were doled out at the ceremony held in Shanghai, with He-Sen Liu taking the Acqua Panna Connection in Gastronomy Award for his dish, Homemade Oyster Sauce with Shandong Wagyu.

“I have been training in the culinary arts since I was 14, and that set me on my career path,” said Liu. “It allowed me to gain a thorough understanding of Western gastronomy and culinary techniques. But I have never veered too far from what is familiar to me - Chinese cuisine is etched in my memory and I am mesmerized by it. Coupled with foreign elements, it has sparked whimsical surprises in my style of Chinese cuisine.”

The other winner on the night was Binshu Zhao, who won the Fine Dining Lovers Food for Thought Award, voted for by Fine Dining Lovers’ readers, for a dish of carp and lamb called Coexistence.

“Nature is almighty, and ecological systems require balance, this symbiosis is the only way to survive, so I had the inspiration to use 'Coexistence' as my theme,” said Zhao, describing the dish. “This inspiration stemmed from the traditional Chinese character 'Xian' (meaning freshness, which is made up of the Chinese character for 'fish' and the Chinese character for 'lamb')."

"I use a commonly found but not ordinary big-head carp fish head from the freezing regions of the northeast. Due to the cold weather, the big head carp is fatty and has a wonderful texture. The fish head is the best part and rich in collagen, it is the soul of the produce. This I combined with the delicacy of the grasslands, the tender lamb, and the traditional fried snack 'You Dun Zi'; onion crisp, caviar, asparagus lettuce, and powdered dill adds texture and flavour. Where it matters, ingredients that reflect their geographical and natural habitat are used, and through my understanding, creativity, innovation and using each ingredient to its fullest.”