Hamish Pearce named UK's best young chef at M Restaurants' awards

1/4
David Ellis @dvh_ellis1 August 2018

A 22-year-old who cooks in Hackney favourite Pidgin has been named as the best young chef in the country.

Hamish Pearce took the title last night at the second of M Restaurants’ Young Chef of the Year competition, in a lighthearted ceremony held at the group’s flagship site in Victoria.

Pearce won with a pop-up in the restaurant last month, which was judged by the public alongside top chefs’ Adam Handling, José Pizarro and Sophie Michell, as well as M’s executive chef Michael Reid and the group’s founder Martin Williams.

“I’m on top of the world, I didn’t expect this,” an animated Pearce told the Standard, “It’s an incredible thing for young chefs, it gives you the opportunity to take over a restaurant for a night.

“It’s amazing the trust they have in young chefs, to have them like that in their restaurant. I’m so excited to see what they do next year.”

The chef – who began the competition at Ollie Dabbous’ Hide before moving to Pidgin – impressed with a menu of monkfish ceviche with kiwi and pickled elderflower, followed by endive with babaganoush, liver, nettles and coal. A main course of venison with fermented gazpacho came before sheep’s milk ricotta plated with nectarine and orange ice cream.

“A lot of the dishes I picked from things I’ve worked on in a lot of the restaurants I’ve been in – things I’ve loved and now put my own twist on.”

30 must-try dishes in London restaurants

1/31

Michael Reid, who both judged and presented the evening's awards, said: “It wasn’t easy – the standard of all the contestants was seriously high and I was genuinely blown away by some of the cooking.

“Hamish, however, gave us the full package. He certainly gave his diners an experience they will remember – I couldn’t have asked for anything more.”

Other winners last night included Jamie Gardner from Tower Bridge site Coal Shed – who picked up the Outstanding Menu award – as well as Adebayo Folarin of Covent Garden’s Opera Tavern, who was named Best Marketeer. The three beat competition from the likes of Jason Atherton’s Pollen St Social, Clarette and the Lake District’s acclaimed Ryebeck Hotel.

Pearce and Gardner will now each present their menus for the public at M Victoria St during two separate five-day pop-ups starting next week.

“My residency next week is going to be fun,” said Pearce, “I’ve done the hard part, this is about having fun, enjoying myself.”

Explaining the competition, Martin Williams said: “There are two purposes – to nurture the best young talent already in our kitchens and secondly, I hope that by seeing what other young people are doing with food, it will inspire others to get into the professional kitchen and try it out for themselves.

“Thanks to Brexit the hospitality industry is suffering from worrying staff shortages and we want to make becoming a chef an aspirational career to students coming out of schools and colleges.”

Hamish Pearce’s pop-up will takeover M Victoria August 7-11, while Jamie Gardner will showcase his menu from August 14-18. Tickets for both can be bought here.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in