Jack Rice of Dublin’s Comet restaurant was named young chef of the year at the Euro-toques Ireland annual gala dinner, The Irish Times reported. Rice, who originally hails from Limerick, secured the title after a rigorous final challenge that required six competing chefs to design two original dishes comprising a main course and either a starter or a dessert.
The Winning Menu at the Euro-toques Ireland Final
For the competition’s main course, Rice prepared a dish titled The Past and Present of Beef in Ireland. He followed this with a dessert named Mum’s Apple Tart to capture the top prize. The culinary brief for the 40th-anniversary theme, Community at the Table, mandated the use of specific local ingredients.
The finalists had to build their dishes around a centre-cut of Dexter beef sirloin on the bone supplied by Brave Herders in County Cork. They also incorporated organic rye, spelt, and wholemeal flours from Dunany Flour in County Louth, alongside butter and yoghurt sourced from Saltrock Dairy in Gorey, County Wexford.
Finalists and Competition Lineup
Rice competed against five other finalists during the event. The fellow contenders included Áine Budds from the Comet restaurant, Shannon Caulfield of Ashford Castle, and Aymeric Decourval representing Lady Helen at Mount Juliet. Sam Nourse of Chapter One and Simone Tamilio of Bar Pez rounded out the final group.
Over a six-month mentorship period leading up to the event, all six finalists visited prominent restaurant kitchens. They toured Keelan Higgs’ kitchen at Variety Jones in Dublin, Rafael Cagali’s two Michelin-starred Da Terra in London, and Ómós in Abbeyleix, County Laois, a venture opened by Nomos alumni Cuán Greene. The young chefs also visited Dunany Flour and the Carlingford Oyster Company.
Prizes and Gala Honors
As the winner of the young chef title, Rice received a Kenwood Chef Titanium XL, a one-day knife course with Sam Gleeson, a voucher for knife sharpening, and a bottle of Two Shores Superior Irish Rum. He also secured a chef’s stage at one of the judges’ kitchens, choosing between Da Terra in London with chef Rafael Cagali or Restaurante Maca de Castro in Mallorca under Macarena de Castro Martín.
The judging panel for the main chef category featured Michelin-starred chef Lewis Barker of Terre at Castlemartyr Resort in County Cork, Keelan Higgs of Variety Jones, and Domini Kemp of Lottie’s in Rathmines, Dublin.
During the same ceremony, Aengus Moloney of Aniar in Galway was announced as the rising pastry chef of the year. Moloney triumphed over four other finalists: Aoife Comerford of Liath in Dublin, Alena Pazitna of The Merrion Hotel, Francesca Kearns of Ashford Castle, and Masha Campbell of My Kitchen by Sham Hanifa in Carrick-on-Shannon. Moloney’s victory earns him a trip to visit food decorator PCB Creation in Strasbourg, France, a stage with a category judge, a Kenwood Chef Titanium XL, and a bottle of Two Shores Superior Irish Rum. The pastry judging panel consisted of Lali González of Glover’s Alley in Dublin, Tom Phelan of Lady Helen at Mount Juliet, and Orna Larkin of the InterContinental in Dublin.
Worth a look