Lady Chef of the Year is culinary world traveller
Ingrid Neven, a 30-year-old Limburger who runs a restaurant in Antwerp, is the new Bru Lady Chef of 2010. Chosen by the readers of the Flemish magazine Culinary Ambiance, Neven is the youngest title holder in the award’s 20-year history.
At the age of 15, Neven started training at the hotel school in Herk-de-Stad, before a career that took her to Antwerp, Vroenhoeven and Maastricht. In Vroenhoeven she met chef Hans Snijders, who would later put her in contact with William Wouters, who needed a chef for his restaurant Pazzo in Antwerp.
The two still work together, at the head of a brigade of 12, serving what Neven describes as “the world on a female plate”. Sample dishes from the menu include burrata salad with grilled pumpkin; tartare of scallops with Granny Smith apples, shiso and crunchy garlic; pigs’ cheeks braised with sweet chili and celeriac puree; grilled sea bream in a nage of thyme and winter vegetables; and ravioli of chocolate with confit of orange.
The theme of this year’s Bru prize, Travel and Discovery, “works perfectly for me,” Neven says. The menu prepared for the sponsors of the Bru prize went from Scotland to England to Japan to Australia, the whole accompanied by South African wines. “For what goes onto the plate, I go on a voyage of discovery in the city, where you find all sorts of nationalities next to each other. I love fusion, or cross-cooking – combining different cuisines. Cooking is really my thing.”
The menu of this year’s Lady Chef
Sashimi of Australian Kingfish, Granny Smith cream, celery and vinaigrette of pickled ginger
Scots mussels Japanese-style, salad of white cabbage and wakame, seaweed jelly and miso mayonnaise
Neck of English lamb in a crust of cashew nuts and panko, puree of young carrots with ras el hanout, chutney of raisins and capers, saffron beurre blanc
