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Applications are now open for the prestigious award, with $10,000 worth of prizes and the opportunity to cook at a special event dinner.
Good Food Guide Editors
July 23, 2025
Promising young chefs in Victoria, NSW and the ACT – this is your moment. Young Chef of the Year presented by Smeg, awarded by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guides, is now open for applications from the next generation of cooking talent.
Previous winners include influential Australian chefs Phil Wood, Brett Graham, Lauren Eldridge and Andrew McConnell. The next Young Chef of the Year recipients will be named at the Good Food Guide Awards in Sydney and Melbourne in October, and prizes include $10,000 worth of Smeg appliances of the winners’ choice, plus professional mentoring.
Finalists will also be invited to cook at special Young Chef of the Year showcase dinners in Sydney and Melbourne.
In 2024, Rockpool Bar and Grill sous-chef Luke Bourke took home the award for The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide. Meanwhile, The Age crowned Saavni Krishnan – sous-chef at Mauritian-influenced wine bar Manze – its winner.
Bourke is now leading the kitchen team at Felons Seafood in Manly. Krishnan was invited to turn her pop-up series, Saadi, into a winter residency at Sunda, and has departed Manze to focus on Saadi full-time.
To apply, chefs must be under 30 years old; a permanent Australian resident; and based in Victoria, NSW or the ACT. The industry judging panel and Good Food Guide editors are looking for chefs who:
- are fantastic cooks;
- have a social conscience;
- work to better the community;
- lift up their fellow chefs, and
- are keenly interested in learning and improving.
The Young Chef of the Year dinners will not be part of the judging process.
The award is open to chefs working in any section of the kitchen, but they must not be an executive chef or the owner of a restaurant. (Applications from head chefs are accepted if there is also an executive chef in the kitchen.)
The first step is completing an online application before August 24. Finalists will appear in front of a panel of industry leaders and a representative from the Good Food Guide for a face-to-face interview on September 1 in Sydney and September 8 in Melbourne.
Access the application form. Questions? Email [email protected]
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