More than 3000 young chefs submitted their application together with their signature dish to participate to S.Pellegrino Young Chef 2015, the global scouting project to find the world’s best young chefs.

Applications were divided into 20 regions, according to the geographic area of origin, dishes were judged  according to five Golden Rules: ingredients, skills, genius, beauty, message.

A fantastic seven of the Top 10 selected for Africa and Middle East, were South African chefs, and in this series we catch up with each of them.

Amoré Botha is the Chef de Partie at the 12 Apostles Hotel and Spa, Camps Bay.

It is an amazing achievement to have been placed in the Top Ten of this award selection – congrats! Tell us about your journey to entering…

I was encouraged by my head chef last year to enter a lot of competitions, in the case of this one, I saw the entry on Twitter and decided to enter it for myself.

Tell us about the dish that got you here…

I started with fruits I like to eat, because I wanted the dish to be a fresh, summer dish. I used tropical fruit like pineapple, litchi and papaya. Also, I wanted to create something that people with a fussy digestive systems could also enjoy, something that is gluten and lactose free.

 Without giving too much away, do you have an idea what you will be cooking in the next round?

NO IDEA! Worst case, cooking someone else’s dish…

Chef David Higgs is the selected mentor for this group – daunting or exciting…or both?

Moerse exciting.

Quickfire Questions…

 Current favourite ingredient… eggs.

Your foodie guilty pleasure… off-set palette knife and small serrated knife.

Bucket list foodie destination… ice-cream. Or toasted ham and cheese.

Drink after a long, hard service… Double vodka, on the rocks.

Pet peeve… when someone switches off the ovens timer, leaving the door closed and telling anyone about it.

Last meal on earth… my dad’s savory rice.