Why Chefs Are Hooked on Cooking Contests

Despite the physical, mental, and financial toll of such global showdowns, chef Mathew Leong is not ruling out a third stab at the Bocuse d'Or

- Cherie Lok

It is 5pm on a Monday at the Sirha Lyon, where the world's most prestigious cooking competition is drawing to a close after an intense two days. The stage is empty. The results are still hours away. And yet, the arena is a blizzard of nationalistic fervor.

There is singing, shouting, and a horn that never seems to let up. To my right, the United States contingent breaks out into chants of "USA! USA! USA!" Not to be outdone, Icelandic supporters launch into their trademark Viking thunder claps.

A DJ gets on stage and tells everyone to put their hands in the air. The French fans happily oblige. Somewhere, someone is dressed as a mushroom.

In the middle of all of this is the 30-odd-strong Team Singapore, scattered around the arena in whatever empty seats they could find. It marks the dizzying end of a grueling journey, for the supporters who made the 16-hour trip from Singapore to Lyon, for the families who watched their loved ones sacrifice sleep and sanity for this moment and, most of all, for the 30-year-old chef marching onto the stage, the Singapore flag in his hands.

Mathew Leong, executive chef at Re-Naa, a three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Norway, spent three years training for the Bocuse d'Or. Three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars, all distilled into a 51/4-hour whirlwind of cookery.

In the next 10 minutes, he will find out if all that effort was worth it. The results are announced, quick but not entirely painless: Sweden bronze, Denmark silver, France gold. Singapore is sixth.

Just like that, it is over. The slim hope of victory once again slipping out of reach.

Yet, when we meet a month later, Leong, who finished 12th at the same competition in 2021, refuses to rule out the possibility of competing for a third time.

"I hope so," he says. Though now that he is in his 30s and married, he acknowledges that "competition doesn't feed my family."