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John Taube has been chosen to represent the USA at the S.Pellegrino Young Chef 2018 Grand Finale in Milan, Italy.
Taube, who works as the Sous Chef at the NoMad Hotel, was up against nine other US based chefs during the regional finals held in New York. He won convincingly with a simple looking dish of beetroot and squab that deceptively contained 51 different ingredients.
“It’s incredible,” he shouted, just after hearing his name and receiving a hug from his dad. Taube had ealier told the judges that cooking beetroot became a passion after his father got sick and struggled to eat meat.
“There’s just so many things I wanted to improve on my dish, he said, visibly shocked he had won. "This is awesome, I’m so surprised, it hasn’t sunk in.”
Taube will now travel to Milan for the S.Pellegrino Young Chef finals where he will present his dish to the final sages and come up against 20 semi-finalists from around the world. He will be mentored by Gavin Kaysen who was part of the same team that brought about the gold medal success for Team USA at the world famous Bocuse d’Or cooking competition in Lyon, France.
“He had 51 ingredients in the dish but when you look at it, it’s simple, said Kaysen after helping decide which of the young chefs he would mentor, “51 things but it was essentially beet and squab. He’s already achieved the maturity level we want and now it’s about grooming him and molding him, letting him tell more of his story.”
