Bistro chef Josh Boutwood’s winning dishes at Village Tavern

If gourmands eat with their eyes first, chefs cook in their minds.

“We have a flavor library in our head where we can actually mix flavors together to come up with a delectable dish in no time,” relates Bistro Group’s corporate chef Josh Boutwood ,who was recently named “Chef of the Year 2013” at the Philippine Culinary Cup of the World Food Expo (PCC-Wofex).

Chef Josh competed in seven out of the 18 individual and team categories and won two gold and five silver medals that ultimately earned him the prestigious title.

What’s interesting to note is that it took chef Josh only two hours to conceptualize his winning dishes.

“I went shopping for ingredients the night before the competition. When I got home, I put everything on the kitchen table then went to bed right away. I woke up at 4 a.m., looked at the ingredients again, created a recipe in my head, packed some of the food items, then went straight to the test kitchen where I formalized everything before going to the SMX Convention Center to compete,” notes chef Josh, who is known as “The Alchemist” in the culinary scene for his uncanny creativity in the kitchen.

Savor the sweet taste of victory

Chef Josh replicates some of his award-winning dishes from the competition for the whole month of December at Village Tavern, the North Carolina-based restaurant known for its signature dishes such as flatbreads, steaks, burgers, ribs, pizzas and crab cakes.

A story told through complex flavors heightened by an impressive visual presentation unfolded during chef Josh’s cooking demonstration at the launch of Village Tavern’s holiday menu.

Impeccably flavorful but with a touch of fun and whimsy, chef Josh lent his talent not only in the way he works with quality ingredients but also in naming his dishes based on his favorite childhood stories.

His entry to the US Poultry category was Henry the Duck, a flavorful dish made of duck breast, watercress, sweet potatoes and cranberry.

“The dish was inspired by the book The Ugly Duckling, which I would read to my daughter,” he shares. “The sweet potatoes simulate the banks of the pond and the watercress would be the seaweeds in the story.”

Chef Josh also wowed the judges with his The Betrayal of Piglet and Winnie, a complex dish made of pork, honey and fresh herbs. He won silver medals for both dishes.

In Ode to Picasso, a deconstructed dish of scallops, pickled/fermented cabbage and dill, chef Josh looked to the Spanish painter for inspiration.

“In every dish that I create, I don’t look at food items for inspiration; instead I’d go for architecture, fashion magazines, even paintings to come up with something different on my plate. Ode to Pablo Picasso was formulated in a way the artist created his later abstract paintings — gruesome but lovely. So I used scallops, red cabbage and cranberry juice to add color and texture to the dish,” chef Josh explains. However, it’s his second sous vide (dish of duck, beetroot and rutabaga, which he called The Last Scene of the Waterfowl Hunt that won him a silver medal.

He also garnered a silver medal each for the Australian Lamb and Australian Beef categories where he prepared Dolly’s Clone, a lamb dish with parsnip, rhubarb and cherries; and the Ballade of Bodacious, a meaty dish using top blade, beef bone marrow mixed with flavorful umami sauce and pickled red cabbage to depict a bullfight.

“Bodacious was a notorious rodeo bull that nobody could ride but died in 2000,” he explains.

His pasta dish called “Magic Mushroom” is made of porcini mushroom, truffle, herb and ham. This won him a gold medal in the competition.

Also on Village Tavern’s menu is chef Josh’s Dory’s Alzheimer’s Memory cooked with lapu-lapu fish, pearl barley and seaweed, which earned him another gold medal.

“I just had fun, cooked my heart out, hoped for the best that the dishes would work out the way I wanted them to, and they did,” he enthuses.

Savor chef Josh’s award-winning dishes available until Dec. 31 at Village Tavern, second floor, Bonifacio High Street Central,  Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.

* * *

For reservations, call 621-3245.