I cannot think of a better way to start the Conversation with a chef year than to chat to Bocuse d'Or finalist, Alex McIntosh. Originally from Canada, long-time fan of Bocuse d'Or, Alex was a finalist in the Bocuse dOr Australia 2015, a judge for the fish dish in the Bocuse d'Or Australia 2017, and among the crowd cheering on Team Australia in Lyon in 2017. Over his career, Alex has worked at Melbourne icon Cecconi's, with Neil Perry at Rockpool Bar & Grill, with Jamie Oliver at Fifteen Melbourne, and at The Atlantic Group as Head Chef. He then relocated to Geelong and spent almost five years as Executive Chef for Sea Change Hospitality Group, overseeing some of Bellarine Peninsula's favourite venues. Alex recently joined the Sou'West Brewery in Torquay, while at the same time embarking on his Bocuse d'Or journey. Alex clearly has a passion for cooking and has been doing it from an early age. It was such a privilege for me to chat to him only two days out from him flying to France and 13 days out from the big day of competition. I absolutely loved talking to Alex and will be waiting with bated breath to hear the outcome.
Hi Alex. It's Jo from Conversation with the Chef. How are you?
I'm good. How are you?
Good, thank you. Thank you so much for your time because I know you must have a million things that you're doing right at the moment.
It is a busy time. But thank you as well for doing this and getting the Bocuse DOr name out there.
Absolutely. Now, I might just start by situating where we are, given that it's a phone call and a podcast and so on. I'm calling from Melbourne and you're on the Bellarine Peninsula, at least I think you are today. Is that right?
That's correct, yes.
Are you atSou'WestBrewery in Torquay today?
I am not. I will be later, but I'm not this second.
How long have you been with the brewery?
I've been with the brewery for over two years now. I started with them before we opened, helped with the design and the construction of the kitchen and some of the concepts and things like that so I have been with them from the very beginning. I have taken some time off in the lead up to the Bocuse d'Or, but weve got a really solid team there in the kitchen looking after things while I'm gone.
Amazing. Congratulations on winning the Australian component of the Bocuse d'Or and as you say, you're about to head to Lyon really soon. When do you actually fly out?
Yes, thank you very much. I head out on Saturday, the 14th of January. It has all come around very quickly with, with Christmas and New Year's and the busy smer season. The time's just flying by.We all fly out this week and we'll do some training over there in Lyon in preparation for the big day.
The big day is the 23rd and that's the second day of the competition, is that right?
That's correct. There are 24 teams and it's held over two days. So 12 teams on day one, 12 teams on day two were team number eight on day number two. Day two is the day that all the action happens and the awards and everything. So it's a really good day to be cooking.
Wow. They say the event is the culinary equivalent of the Olympic Games. Its a really long journey. When did it all start for you?
Well, for me my interest in the Bocuse d'Or started a very long time ago. I'm originally from Canada and I've been here for about 16 years now, but I had an opportunity to be the assistant chef for Team Canada, but I never ended up pursuing that and ended up moving to Australia instead. So my interest in it has always been from a young age and I always wanted to compete because I always looked up to this competition. It's the best chefs in the world competing at the highest level and the food there is just absolutely amazing, so I've always kept an eye on it and I always tried to be involved. I did the National Selection Australia in 2016. I didn't win that and I went to France and watched Dan Arnold compete. He did an amazing job and is now my coach, so it's funny how it worked out. I competed in the national selection against Dan Arnold, didn't win, watched him compete, and now he's helping me and he's my coach going to Lyon this year. I stayed involved, assisted where I could, because a lot of what we do is volunteer work and fundraising work and things like that. So there are always lots of opportunities to be involved for people that are interested. Then last year I thought the timing was right to put my hat back in the ring again and I won the national selection. And then after the national selection, there's the Asia Pacific qualifying which is the area that Australia falls under. To give you the broader strokes, the competition has national selections, then qualifying, so there's European, Africa, Asia, Pacific, and Americas. Then the top teams from those go to the finals in Lyon. So after I did the national selection in 2022, we did Asia Pacific qualifying, and progressed to the finals and that'll be in the next couple of weeks.
Amazing. Do you go with one dish? Is that how it works?
They give you a theme, which you need to cook from. There are always two dishes. When the competition began, there was always a meat platter and a fish platter, and it was presented on the platter and they walk it past the judges and then you go and plate it up individually. Now times have progressed and it has changed slightly. This year we are doing a fish platter and then a plated a three-course menu. You need to work on the theme that they give you and then the job is to represent the food that you do as well as the country that you come from. The theme for the platter this year is monk fish, scallops and mussels. We have to use those three key ingredients, put our theme onto it and put the Australian flavours and native ingredients onto it.
A lot of my theme and inspiration is the Great Ocean Road area that I work in. The brewery is located in Torquay and it's the start of the Great Ocean Road and where the land meets the sea and all those flavours coming together; thats the theme I'm focusing on because I like to show where in the world we are and I think that's an important part of it.
The second theme is the plated dish. We need to do a three course menu with the theme of feed the Kids and so children and nutrition and also pumpkin is the ingredient we have to use for that theme. We need to do a cold vegan entree, a hot vegetarian main with pumpkin and an egg, and then a pumpkin dessert. We have to do 15 portions of each from scratch in five and a half hours.
Wow. I hadn't realized. It's so prescriptive, isn't it?
It is, it is very structured and very unique. There's no other competition like it and that's why it's just held in such prestigious regard. It's really the toughest of the tough and the best of the best competing. I've always, and still do look up to all the other chefs that have been involved in and competed in this competition and it's humbling to be able to stand beside them.
There’s no other competition like it and that’s why it’s just held in such prestigious regard. It’s really the toughest of the tough and the best of the best competing. I’ve always, and still do look up to all the other chefs that have been involved in and competed in this competition and it’s humbling to be able to stand beside them. ~ Alex Macintosh
What are they judging you on? That might seem like a silly question, but are they looking at technique obviously, or is it a range of things, flavour, timing?
They judge you on absolutely everything that you can be judged on: your organization, your cleanliness, your speed, consistency. They're looking at every single plate and it has to be perfect and looking exact. But at the end of the day it's a cooking competition. So all those things I mentioned, you know, have a certain percentage of the score, but 50% of the score is flavour. No matter what it looks like and how clean you are, if it doesn't taste good, you're not going to win.
Absolutely. So it is still about flavour at the end of the day. Obviously you want to enjoy the food you're eating, no matter how beautiful it is, or you know, how great the backstory is. When you are practising, I guess you have to practice to time and make sure you're doing all those 15 portions. Is that how you practise for this?
You need that repetition and that muscle memory of knowing how to make things. A lot a lot of these recipes and techniques and things, they're so specific and designed and created for this competition. You know, I've never made it before, nobody's made these things together before. So it's about repeating it and getting really good at cooking it so you can do it without thinking because of the speed of everything. You need to just know how to do it.
Everything's timed down to the minute. We know that this job takes five minutes, this job takes 12, and, and we'll have a coach, who's Dan Arnold on the other side of the pass saying, you're behind on this job, or you're on time or you're looking good or you need to hurry up and things like that because it's all scripted down to the minute and to get that script right, you need to practice. In all, to do the competition, even though it's five and a half hours of cooking, it takes about 20 hours of work to get it ready to cook. You can organize your ingredients before you go in and it takes a lot of time to organize ingredients, the equipment, it's all detailed down to the amount of spoons you need and spatulas you need and so on. It's very specific.
And your commis chef is Tristan Spain. Have you developed a bit of a shorthand code between you as to how you work through all those things?
Uh, no we don't. We just practice and work together, learning the dishes together. Tristan's a great chef. He's been working with me on some of these things and contributed to some of the dishes. So, while I'm the candidate, there's a whole lot of teamwork. There are so many people involved doing such a lot, a large amount of hard work to get us there. I feel very privileged to be working with all these people selflessly trying to help Australia succeed and get up on the podium.
You mentioned that there are the 24 teams and on the Bocuse d'Or site they talk about the the competition as being an incubator of talent, passion, and technique, and also a way for countries around the world to showcase their culture and terroir, which you mentioned. That all sounds incredible. Is that aspect of the competition something you're looking forward to as well?
It definitely is. It is a competition at the end of the day and there's a certain amount of secrecy about your dishes and things like that. You don't reveal anything until the day. You don't want to give anybody an advantage and things like that. But the amount of people that I've started talking to and relationships that have developed through this both in Australia and overseas is really exciting. I have talked to some of the other candidates already and developed those relationships and friendships that will carry on well past competition day as well. It is a big family. It's a big network of chefs from all around the world and it's such an amazing thing to be part of.
Absolutely. And Lyon, Lyon must be heartland gastronomy with all the bouchons and Bocuse himself and so on. I mean, it's just an incredible place. Do you have time to enjoy Lyon itself?
I'll have a couple of days afterwards, but it, I'll be very focused on, on the competition and the cooking. We'll have some, a little bit of time off to enjoy the city and get out a little bit and go to the markets and collect the ingredients for the day to do the, the testing and things like that. But there is a work element to it and we're very focused on, on getting the win at the end of the day.
Of course. Now I'm always interested in the backstory of the chefs I talk to. I watched that beautiful video on your Instagram account made by the Moffitt Group where you were saying that your mother, grandmother, and great grandmother all cooked, so you always knew you wanted to be a chef, which is an incredible thing to know. What are some food memories that you have from growing up?
A lot of those memories are around the holidays and Christmas when everybody gets together and there's just so much homemade baking and all the sweets and the roast turkeys and, they're not that popular here, but in Canada and in my family, pierogi are very popular, so we'd always have handmade pierogi.
But also growing up, I started washing dishes in the kitchen when I was 14 because my family was in restaurants and catering facilities and things like that. I didn't have to think about what I wanted to do because that was always available to me and, and I liked it and just developed naturally through kitchens, so I was always in and around hospitality and had an abundance of homemade fresh food. It was always really good. I'll be going home after Lyon, to see the family on the way back to Australia. My wife made a comment that my grandma has probably already started baking and getting all the treats ready for when I get there.
I bet. Well it'll be hail the conquering hero, because no matter what happens in Lyon, it's an extraordinary achievement to even be going there. I bet they're very proud.
They are, they are.
Alex, thank you so much for your time. I wish you 'bonne chance' in Lyon. It sounds as though you've done everything you possibly can to be prepared. So I look forward to hearing how it all goes and thanks so much for sharing this with us.
No worries. Thank you for the chat and I look forward to talking more when I get back.