Bocuse d'or 2020: Norway wins the golden ticket!

The Bocuse d'or was born in Paul Bocuse's mind in 1987 when he imagined a show around great cuisine as one could watch a sports show.

The concept is to bring together 24 of the most promising young chefs from around the world and ask them to create two dishes in the space of 5h35mn. The final takes place in Lyon during the prestigious SIRHA trade show dedicated to catering and gastronomy.

Over the years, the concept, which has received a lot of media coverage, has attracted more and more interest in participating. In 2005, national and then continental pre-selections (Bocuse d'or Europe, Bocuse d'or Asia Pacific, Bocuse d'or America, Bocuse d'or Africa) were inaugurated, qualifying the 24 participants for the world finals.

The Scandinavian countries are in the spotlight this year on the podium of the European qualifiers. With Norway in^1st position on the gold step, closely followed by Denmark on the silver step and Sweden on the bronze step, the countries of the far North proved to be very competitive and distinguished themselves by their creativity and professionalism among the 16 candidate countries.

The Norwegian chef Christian André Pettersen, who has already won the competition in 2018, dazzled the jury with beautiful and appetizing compositions.

As this 7th edition of the Bocuse d'or Europe is being held in Estonia, the committee has chosen to highlight local and popular products in their culinary traditions. Thus the candidates had to realize :

- For the platter: Estonian quail with 3 fillings, one of which is quail eggs and two exclusively vegetable fillings.

- For the plate: catfish from Estonia, with the constraint of using only plants to sublimate the product.

Having fallen into the pot when he was a child, Christian André Pettersen began his career with a former Bocuse d'or winner, Charles Tjessem. He currently works as head chef at the Mondo restaurant in Sandens (in the south of the country near Stavanger).