Young National Chef of the Year 2018: Danny Young, January 2018

Young National Chef of the Year 2018 winner, Danny Young gives The Staff Canteen a monthly insight into what it is like to be a sous chef at Northcote Manor as well as all the other exciting opportunities he is set to experience in the coming year.

• See more Young National Chef of the Year 2018 blogs from Danny Young
• When was the final of the Young National Chef of the Year 2018?
• See the latest recipes from Danny Young

In his third blog, Danny talks about cooking with guest chefs at the annual Obsession event at Northcote and shares more details about his fishing trip to Norway.

Christmas was looming at the time of my last blog but now that is all over, we are in full swing at Obsession 18.

For readers who don’t know what Obsession is, it is a food and wine festival that Northcote has been hosting for the last 18 years.

Every year, guest chefs are invited from all over the globe to bring their own food and style to Northcote. It’s a fantastic experience for me and other young chefs to work alongside Michelin rated chefs from the likes of Japan, Mexico, Hong Kong and Australia.

The biggest perk of this is having all this experience at your disposal without having to leave Lancashire!

At the time of writing we are only on day two of Obsession’s 18 nights and already we have seen some weird and wonderful ingredients come into the kitchen. It’s not every day you get to handle £6000 worth of truffles!

This is my fifth year of being at Northcote during Obsession, and as an apprentice back in 2012, it was really exciting to see and meet such a great line-up of chefs such as Tom Kerridge, Claude Bosi, Hans Neuner etc.

It’s a fantastic opportunity to learn new techniques or see how they use ingredients differently, and I’ve really benefited from being a part of it.

Unfortunately, I will have to miss the last few days of Obsession in order for me to go on my fishing trip to Norway, which I’m very much looking forward to. Especially getting to meet and spend time with well-known and well-established chefs such as Michel Roux Jr and Daniel Clifford.

Looking ahead to February, I have lots of exciting events happening. As mentioned, the fishing trip to Norway is round the corner, but when I return I am delivering a celebratory skrei dinner with Simon Hulstone (from The Elephant restaurant in Torquay) at the Norwegian Embassy in London for 30 guests, including Michel Roux Jr and the Norwegian Ambassador. No pressure!

While on my trip to Norway, I’ll be looking for inspiration for my menu and interesting techniques to create a really exciting celebratatory lunch for everyone. Back at Northcote, we will be hosting Ken Hom for “An Evening Celebrating the Perigord Truffle”. It’s always great to be involved in this and working alongside such a legend in the industry.

About Danny Young:

Danny is Young National Chef of the Year 2018 having won the competition at the Restaurant Show at Olympia London in October. Danny is currently sous chef at Northcote in Lancashire. His first experience in fine dining came after he left school when he secured a job working in a Michelin starred kitchen. Danny has come in second place in the Young National Chef of the Year competition for the last two years and was North West Young Chef of the Year in 2014.