An Interview with North West Chef of The Year Winner Danny Young

By James Euinton

A week after leaving secondary school, Danny Young went to work in a Michelin Starred kitchen. Since then he has worked tirelessly to refine his craft, and recently impressed top judges at the North West Young Chef of The Year competition, taking first place.

We caught up with Danny earlier this week:

How did you feel about winning the competition?

It was a big relief really, I had been waiting around for three hours, looking at everyone's dishes it was really close, so yeah it was a big relief and I'm really happy to have won.

I assume you have been training for the competition on top of your commitments for The Northcote?

Yeah, I will have been training at the Northcote for four years in July, I got involved with that after I applied to do a trial apprenticeship, I was only a young lad just out of school, so I thought it would be a great chance just to prove myself, and four years down the line here we are.

How was it when you first started working there, was it a bit of a shock when you first entered a Michelin starred kitchen?

Yeah I didn't actually know what was going on, the hours came as a bit of a shock, I started off doing banqueting down at eagles park, I then moved into the pubs doing stuff at the weekends there when they were low on staff.

How did you get into the competition, have you always had an interest in competitive cooking or was it more spontaneous?

It's the first one I have ever done, so basically the HR team emailed me saying North West Chef of the year is coming up, so we will put your name forward if you want to do it, so I thought, why not I'll have a go at it, got a couple of menus together and just went for it.

I assume that you would be competing with chefs quite a bit older and more experienced than you too, was it quite a surprise when you found out you won it?

Yeah, because it was surprising to just get to the finals because then I found myself up against people from L’Enclume and The Chester Grosvenor, so the competition was tough.

Were these dishes quite similar to what you serve at The Northcote?

Yeah very similar so the techniques were the same, the items on the dishes were like stuff we do every day, so I just worked on the different kinds of presentation.

Did this make the transition from normal kitchen service to competitive cooking easier?

Some of the dishes were almost identical in presentation style. Its all about making stuff look really clean and not too complicated in terms of presentation.

That’s one of the things that the judges picked up on, that the presentation looked clean and simple, they didn't want to see you go too out of your way with it, making it look fancy.

To be fair it isn't the easiest thing to present an asparagus, hollandaise and egg, so just tried to do it as simple as possible to avoid it looking messy and stuff, so just went for hollandaise over the egg and tried to make it look as clean as possible.

With a simple set dish like asparagus, hollandaise and egg, how did you make sure yours stood out over the others in the competition?

Basically I just made sure that everything was spot on, egg cooked right through and to the right temperature, hollandaise not too warm and the right consistency, and not all over the plate and clean presentation too.

What was the pressure like compared to a busy Saturday night service at The Northcote?

It's quite different really because there really was a constant pressure throughout the competition. The last ten minutes when we were plating up, felt similar to service on a Saturday night, when you are just trying to get the food out there as quick as possible, same sort of rush to get it out.

Would you say you enjoy that sort of pressure? I know it attracts a lot of people to the job?

Yeah I do but when it is wrong it's a horrible, horrible feeling! The competition was a good sort of pressure but at the same time it feels a bit confusing to being in the kitchen, as you are out of your comfort zone and you don't know if you are on time, over time or what.

All you are doing is concentrating on getting the food out and you are not normally looking at the clock as you are doing in the competition. There were some top chefs there, which was sort of good to be given the opportunity too cook for them. Its great to get the feedback from them on my cooking, some had differing opinions and a few negative comments but it was good overall.

To find out more about Danny's cooking, visit the Northcote here.