The Bocuse d’Or is the ultimate cooking challenge - think the Olympics of the food world. Founded in 1987 by acclaimed chef Paul Bocuse, this culinary competition told chefs to pack their knives and go home well before television networks discovered that cooking made for an entertaining spectator sport.

The competition is held every two years in Lyon, France with twenty-four countries competing. A team consists of one chef and one sous chef.

Chef Gavin Kaysen, represented the United States at the Bocuse d’Or in 2007. At the time, he was the executive chef of El Bizcocho in San Diego. Kaysen scored the first victory for the US. The executive chef of Cafe Boulud in New York is now the head coach for the USA Team and spends a full year training the competing chef.

Chef Gavin Kaysen Talks About Bocuse d’Or

Q. What does it mean to the coach for Bocuse D’or?

A. Well, certainly it’s an all encompassing project. It’s very time consuming because of the amount of planning that goes into it but, I’m really honored to be a part of the experience. I’ve been a part of Bocuse D’or for eight years, since I competed until now. To see where it’s gone from when I was competing we didn’t have a foundation for the United States.  We didn’t have that same sort of support. Today, we have two task kitchens, we have an East Coast one and a West Coast one. We have obviously Thomas Keller, Jerome Bocuse and Daniel Boulud on our board and then we have all of these culinary council members. It’s just great to have all that support.

Q. Tell us about the training facility at The Greenbrier Hotel?

A. It’s a huge property so, there’s this area called the bunker. It’s literally called the bunker because it was built after World War II to house Congress and the Senate, if there was ever a nuclear fallout. They opened it up maybe 10 or 12 years ago to the public. Nobody really knew it was there before and in that is a little school test kitchen to teach cooking classes. They’ve cancelled the cooking classes for the year and we’ve taken the kitchen and built a Bocus d’Or test kitchen. It’s the exact same kitchen model as what the chef uses to compete in in France. Everything is identical from the soap dispensers to the oven. We buy double of everything. If we use it here in America, we buy the same thing with the French electrical outlets, everything is exactly the same.

Q. How do you pick who is competing?

A. We go through a process in the nationals and we have applications that are sent out. The board goes through the applications and choose four candidates to compete. We had a competition in January and the winner was Richard Rosendale, the executive chef of the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia. He’s a very seasoned competitor. He’s competed in over 40 competitions nationally and internationally.

Recipes

- Spaghetti Nero with Squid and Shrimp

- Maine Peekytoe Crab Salad

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