Lasarte head chef, Paolo Casagrande, will be chairing the Catalan Young Chef Award 2023

The Catalan Young Chef Award will be held on April 18 at the EUHT StPOL facilities. It will be the 35th edition of one of our country’s longest-running cooking contests, which will once again have a very special guest: 3 Michelin star-rated Lasarte restaurant head chef, Paolo Casagrande. In recent editions, other world-class chefs such as Oriol Castro, the Torres brothers or Fina Puigdevall presided the jury of the competition.

Langoustines and scallops will be the focus of the 2023 edition of the Catalan Young Chef Award of Catalonia thanks to the sponsorship with Seafood From Scotland, which will provide its fresh, first-quality product from the North Sea so that all participants can exploit its full potential. The competition is open to students or culinary professionals under the age of 26 who also live in Catalonia.

One of the aspects that the jury will value most will be the skill to combine this edition’s main products with local and seasonal ingredients.

Contestants will have to prepare a recipe that will be evaluated by a jury chaired by Paolo Casagrande and made up of representatives of PRODECA (Promotora d’Exportacions Agroalimentàries Catalanes. Generalitat de Catalunya); from the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition; of the Catalan Tourism Agency and the EUHT StPOL, as well as by gastronomic journalists.

The overall winner of the Catalan Young Chef Competition will be selected to go on a hands-on practical trip to Scotland to learn about fishing and its processes with Seafood from Scotland. In addition, the winner will be the Catalan Gastronomic Region representative in the European Young Chef Award (EYCA), which will be held in November 2023 in Le Touquet, Hautes-de-France (France), European Region of Gastronomy 2023.

Registrations to participate in the Catalan Young Chef Award can be completed until March 30 in accordance with the rules published at www.concurscuinajove.cat

Paolo Casagrande, will preside over the jury of the Young Cooking Contest of Catalonia

The Young Cooking Competition is part of the University Gastronomy Day that the EUHT StPOL has been celebrating since 1980.

Paolo Casagrande is the guest chef at the University Gastronomy Conference and the Youth Cooking Competition of Catalonia. Currently, Casagrande is the head chef at the Lasarte restaurant in Barcelona, which holds three Michelin stars and which he helped to achieve as head chef. He has also received numerous awards and recognitions for his skill in the kitchen and his culinary creativity, such as the National Award for Italian Gastronomy in 2016 or the Best Cook of the Year by Cuina magazine in 2017.

In addition to presiding over the jury of the Catalan Young Chef Award 2023, the Venetian chef will also offer a master class for the students of the EUHT StPOL and for the participants in the competition.

One of the cooking competitions with the longest history

This year the Award celebrates its 35th edition while the EUHT StPOL University Gastronomy Conference reaches its 42nd one. Both are two of the longest-running cooking and gastronomy events held in Catalonia. In recent years, the jury of the Catalan Young Chef Award has been chaired by chefs such as Oriol Castro, Nandu Jubany, Mauro Colagreco, Albert Adrià or Massimo Bottura, among others.