Osvaldo Sejas, EYCA 2023 finalist

The young chef Osvaldo Seejas, trained at the Vedruna Gràcia cookery school, took part in the European Young Chef Award held at the Hotel Bristol in Le Touquet (Hauts-de-France, France).

With the aim of giving visibility to the essential role local food and cultural diversity play in every region, the International Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, Arts and Tourism (IGCAT) created the European Young Chef Award in 2016. This year's 5th edition saw Catalonia represented by young chef Osvaldo Seejas. 

The French town of Le Touquet, in the Hauts-de-France region, European Region of Gastronomy 2022, hosted the two-day competition, bringing together around fifteen young chefs aged 18 to 26 from other regions.

In the young chef's words: "to turn the traditional dish into something innovative I drew on Modernisme, starting from the traditional dish and keeping its traditional ingredients. I made a purée with sweet potato and celeriac. With the vegetables I wanted to convey the light and colour of a Gaudí stained-glass window and give the vegetables pride of place. To avoid food waste I used the red mullet bones to make a concentrated roasting juice and intensify the flavours. Respecting the traditional dish, I served a red pepper vinaigrette with dots of pine nut paste. And to finish, an artichoke (an iconic element of Gaudí's Modernista work) candied in the traditional way, beside the mullet, previously braised with rosemary, thyme and garlic, and a dressed fennel 'bouquet' for freshness and seasonality. And of course a tribute to my country, Bolivia, in the lime air."

About the chef and his dish

Osvaldo Seejas, originally from Bolivia, grew up there until he was 12, when he moved to Barcelona. His interest in cooking began at nine, helping his grandmother in a small restaurant. At 16, after finishing secondary school, he enrolled at the Vedruna Gràcia hospitality school to study cooking and gastronomy. Every day on his way to school he passed Casa Vicens, the work of the young architect Gaudí, which inspired the dish that took him to the European final representing Catalonia.

He reached the final after being named Catalonia's best young chef in a competition organised by the Hotel-School of Sant Pol de Mar last April.

The other finalists were:

• Sander Mollerup, Central Denmark - European Region of Gastronomy 2017 - 3rd prize
• Dimitrios Mavropoulos, South Aegean - European Region of Gastronomy 2019
• Boštjan Volk, Slovenia - European Region of Gastronomy 2021 - 1st prize
• Cristina Pons, Menorca - European Region of Gastronomy 2022 - 2nd prize
• Oskar Krauss, Trondheim-Trøndelag - European Region of Gastronomy 2022
• Louis Barbier, Hauts-de-France - European Region of Gastronomy 2023
• Matias Roisko, Saimaa - European Region of Gastronomy 2024
• Alessia Fisichella, Sicily - European Region of Gastronomy 2025