Young Chef of the Year is based at Cork's Michelin star restaurant: 'Fine dining amazed me...'

THE Euro-Toques Young Chef of the Year competition is Ireland’s premier contest celebrating the country’s best emerging culinary talent.

Open to professional chefs under the age of 28, the competition has a proven track record in discovering the finest young talent, with former winners Gráinne Mullins, Jack Lenards, Conor Halpenny and Mark Moriarty making their mark in Ireland’s food culture and the international food scene.

This year, Shauna Murphy, aged 26, a Senior Chef de Partie at the recently awarded two-star Michelin Terre restaurant in Castlemartyr, scooped the title with her two courses. The main was BBQ lobster with vanilla brown butter bisque reduction and citrus carrot purée, served with a side of barley with lemongrass foam and crispy carrot. For dessert, a date pudding with Velvet Cloud sheep yogurt ice cream, burnt apple, hazelnuts and whiskey caramel.

Originally from Limerick, Shauna’s love for cooking is rooted in a wish to combine a career that embraces creativity with acts of caring.

“In food, I find I can do both,” says Shauna.

As a young child, both her parents became unwell with cancer. Her grandmother often cooked for her, and she’d while away hours baking sweet cakes with a cousin.

“My dad got cancer first when I was about five years old, and my mother got it later in life. They had a whirlwind of cancer between them: one would be OK, and one would be sick, then it would turn around.”

Her father passed away in 2011; her mother made a full recovery. In those formative years, Shauna found food to be a way to show compassion and control in her life.

It was about feeding people and caring about them. Food was one thing I could do to feel like I had some kind of control. It’s been a platform for me to grow up in life.

By the time Shauna was 16, she had grown up fast, and discovered a natural flair for cooking. She went on to study Food and Business at Technological University of the Shannon (TUS), Limerick, and got her first position working in a restaurant in Killaloe.

“It was a very small fast kitchen. Both the owners were chefs before. It was good to work under two people who had been in the industry, and they could see progress in me after only a few months. It was nice to get that recognition,” Shauna recalls.

But it was an interest in fine dining that really captured Shauna’s imagination, and she soon found her way into the prestigious kitchens of Ashford Castle.

“I got into fine dining; it amazed me as a young chef. I worked in the bistro at Ashford Castle and then I’d come in on my days off and work an extra hour or two in the fine dining kitchen just because I wanted to see it in action.

I remember one day they got me to turn potatoes. It’s a skill you really need to practice; we’d make mash out of them after. It was painful, but I can turn a potato for you now, no problem!

Adare Manor was Shauna’s next port of call - two stints over four years working in the kitchens of the manor’s Michelin-starred Oak Room Restaurant under acclaimed and respected chef, Mike Tweedie.

“I absolutely loved my time with Mike in Adare Manor. I had learned so much over those four years and I felt it was my time to go on and learn something different. I want to grow as a chef, and the more people you work under, the more skills you pick up along the way, which is really important.”

Shauna arrived in Castlemartyr’s fine dining restaurant, Terre, in April last year, to work among Vincent Crepel’s kitchen brigade. Soon after came news of Terre gaining its first Michelin star.

Working in prestigious restaurants with influential chefs at the helm makes for an impressive resumé, but Shauna has never been one to sit back and wait for fate to choose a path for her. In 2022, she applied to the Euro-Toques Young Chef of the Year competition, making it all the way to the final.

“I learned a lot from going through the process last year. Even though I didn’t win, I had grown so much by it: two steps forward and one step back is still a step forward. I was a bit closer this year because I had failed last year, and if you don’t fail, you can’t succeed.”

Shauna’s tenacity is fuelled by the desire many chefs harbour, to see their own food take centre stage; to show their identity and personality on the plate for others to enjoy.

“When you’re a young chef, you don’t really have that identity because you’re developing. 

As you get older, you start to learn what you like and what you don’t like. 

"Some chefs’ styles would be very different to mine and that’s OK because we’re all individuals. It’s good that you can be yourself.”

Shauna had reapplied to the 2023 Euro-Toques Chef of the Year competition before making the move to Terre. Part of the process requires having a mentor to work with each young chef. Usually, a mentor is selected from within your own brigade.

“I had to get through the first stage not knowing if I was going to have a mentor in Terre or if I was going to have to go somewhere else.

It was a bit daunting but worth it in the end; I had to go and do it for myself; just to let people see a bit of myself as a chef.

The competition isn’t just about one flawless menu. At its heart, Euro-Toques is about education and community. Throughout the process, the young chefs engage with artisan producers and other stellar chefs in the wider Euro-Toques network. This year, Shauna spent time in West Cork visiting Sally Barnes of multi-award-winning Woodcock Smokery and dined at Baltimore’s two-star Michelin Dede at The Customs House.

“The educational trips were amazing, and I feel as though even working in Cork made me feel more in tune with it.

“Castlemartyr is a ten-minute drive from Ballymaloe House where Euro-Toques started originally [Myrtle Allen was a founding member of the organisation]. I just felt like I was in the right place.”

Angelo Vagiotis is the current Chef de Cuisine in Terre. “He agreed to mentor me, but he let me do what I wanted. He gave me feedback on the dish when he tried it but it was my dish at the end of the day, and he was there supporting me.

“Angelo always believed I was going to win, like he was manifesting it for me! That instilled confidence in me, too. I showed him my dish and it’s very simple – just three things on a plate, so they must be perfect, and he really liked it.

“Angelo and the whole Castlemartyr and Terre team were behind me the whole way which was amazing.

Even if you don’t win, putting your own personality and dish out there is not something a young chef really gets to do; for people to see who you are.

“If I’m working in a Michelin-starred kitchen, it’s more than likely my chef’s food that people will taste; not my own, not my own personality.”

Every year, for the final skills test, the young chefs are given specific ingredients they must use in creating their unique dishes. This year, brown crab or lobster and Velvet Cloud Sheep’s Yogurt were the products chefs had to showcase.

“I love Velvet Cloud Sheep’s Yogurt, so I was delighted with that. In Terre we use a lot of lobster, so it was something I was familiar with – and lobster is king for me! 

I don’t think I could have stretched myself much further with my dishes. I had a lot of elements, and I was running, I can tell you that!

Shauna says she put a lot of emotion into her two dishes, selecting ingredients and ways to present them that reflected her pride in being a young Irish chef.

“I put a lot of emotion into the dish, it was very personal to me. I’m a big fan of barley, and I had a lemongrass foam – the lemongrass is grown in the gardens here at Terre. I chose carrots because my grandmother grew them. The buttermilk and butter came from Ballymaloe. The bread bowl was Galway crystal. I wanted it to be as Irish as I could possibly make it.

“I grew from making this dish. I’m 26 and all the judges had either ran a Michelin kitchen or are over a massive kitchen – that’s terrifying for a young chef, but you don’t give up, and I feel like I’ll always be part of the Euro-Toques community now.”

While Shauna gets comfortable wearing her crown, her sights are fixed on progressing through the ranks at Terre, eventually one day having her own restaurant, and hopefully raising a family; “I want to have a family, and I don’t want to have to sacrifice everything just because I love cooking. I shouldn’t have to. One of the reasons I started cooking was because of my family. It would be so backwards if that part of my life is gone when I started cooking because I cared for people.”

Follow Shauna Murphy on Instagram @chefshaunamurphy