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Young chef wins B+LNZ award
The inaugural winner of the Beef + Lamb Young Ambassador Chef title is no stranger to cooking competition success, but Sam Heaven’s latest victory means a lot to him. Colin Williscroft reports.
EVEN before his most recent win a few weeks ago, there was no doubt Sam Heaven was a young chef going
places.
Despite border closures late last year, he won the Nestlé Golden Chef’s Hat Award for best chef in Australia and New Zealand aged under 25 in a virtual grand final cook-off.
After winning the title Heaven, 23, who works at the Park Hyatt in Auckland, thought that was it for competitions.
“After that last one I thought ‘that’s it, I’ve done heaps, it’s time to focus on my career’,” Heaven said.
But it wasn’t long before he was encouraged to enter the Beef + Lamb Young Ambassador Chef competition – and he’s glad he did.
“It’s not like any other competition. They’re not just concerned about how you’re cooking. Not just how you can be pushed as a robot to mark you down,” he said.
“They want to see the food you cook, and your thoughts and knowledge about it.”
The format of the Beef + Lamb NZ competition involved entrants answering a questionnaire, then providing an optional video, along with photos and recipes for a beef dish and a lamb dish.
They had to share their inspiration behind the recipes, along with what they know about beef and lamb.
He says NZ beef and lamb are great products with a range of versatile uses, something he is learning more about all the time.
After the initial stages, Heaven, along with Ashley Knudsen from No7 Balmac in Dunedin and Lyall Minhinnick from Fleurs Place in Moeraki, had a 90-minute cookoff at Homeland, Peter Gordon’s new cooking school in Auckland, to find the winner.
Heaven grew up in Hawke’s Bay where his family owns a bakery started by his grandfather and continued by his father, who is a pastry chef.
He’s always had a passion for food, something he attributes to his father and grandfather, as well as growing up on a small rural block that was home to an olive grove, garden, beehives and a
small number of sheep, cows and chickens.
It was at college that he first got a taste for cooking, working with his dad during the weekends.
While he was still at school his talent and love of food was recognised by Francky Godinho, executive chef and owner Havelock North restaurant St Georges, who offered him a job in the kitchen.
Godinho acted as a mentor, first giving him the opportunity to design dishes for the dessert menu, then teaching him other kitchen skills.
It meant a busy end to the week, finishing school about 3.30pm then driving to St Georges in time for the dinner service, before getting to the bakery in time to help his father prepare the following day’s bakery fare.
It was a lot of work but it stood him in good stead when he moved to Auckland as an 18-year-old to begin a three-year chef apprenticeship at SkyCity restaurant The Sugar Club.
After spending a further year there once he completed his apprenticeship, he moved to The Park Hyatt.
Heaven says he likes to push boundaries with his cooking.
He describes himself as competitive and ambitious, and when he’s cooking isn’t satisfied sticking to “the rules”, he takes a minimalist approach, while still aiming to get the best out of flavours.
The goal is to give the person eating his food an experience that they have not had before – “the best possible experience”.
Despite his win, Heaven still goes over what he could have done better in the competition.
He puts that down to being a bit of a perfectionist, something he says he gets from his father and grandfather.
“Although you need to be happy with what you’ve done, I always think back and ask myself, ‘could I have done this thing to highlight that flavour?’” he said.
“It’s those little things that could be done better.”
In the latest competition Heaven had to use an induction cooktop, which he is not really accustomed to, so aspects of what he wanted to create did not turn out exactly as he wanted.
But that’s all part of it.
“Things can go bad on the day but a good chef will know how to react,” he said.
Looking at every detail of his cooking and preparation is one of the things that keeps him going, which he uses to push towards the next level.
Always wanting to improve his knowledge, Heaven is currently learning about breaking down carcases with Hannah Childs from A Lady Butcher.
He says that will help him understand what butchers do with the meat before it arrives in the kitchen, along with methods to age different cuts in a variety of ways.
That’s where part of the inspiration behind one of his Beef + Lamb award-winning dishes, a lamb saddle aged in beeswax, came from.
“I just started playing around. It’s (beeswax) got the most amazing flavour. It’s floral without the sweetness,” he said.
His other competition dish used a wagyu steak aged in koji and kombu; the koji an expression of his interest in Scandinavian cooking and its culture of preserving and fermentation.
Heaven says he’s inspired by the Nordic kitchen and one of his goals is to live and work in Scandinavia in the future to learn about the food there.
He also wants to work at a Michelin star restaurant, which is not possible in NZ.
He says the best NZ chefs have gone to the UK to gain experience before returning.
“That’s the level I want to be,” he said.
“I want to go overseas, put my head down and do my time, learn as much as I can.”
In the meantime as Beef + Lamb’s Young Ambassador Chef for 2021, he can call on the organisation’s ambassador chefs Tejas Nikam, Phil Clark, Norka Mella Munoz and Jack Crosti, who were the cook-off judges.
As well as the title’s prestige and the mentoring he will receive throughout the year, Heaven will also experience a hands-on paddock to plate experience from Greenstone Creek beef and Provenance Lamb.
He says being able to see every stage is important as it will give him a better appreciation of the animals he is working with.
That’s a commitment that should be welcomed by sheep and beef farmers.
Sam Heaven Ambassador chef
