Rosie started her culinary journey at Ashburton Culinary School in Devon in the summer of 2020. Straight after her initial four months of training, she moved up to Birmingham and worked at a fine dining restaurant for a few months then on to Adams, a Michelin starred restaurant, until the end of 2021. Her next move was to the Lake District to work at L’Enclume and she has been there ever since.

Rosie admits she was shocked to receive her Young National Chef of the Year jacket and opened it thinking it was something else she had ordered. When she saw her name embroidered on the jacket, she felt very happy and excited, but she admits she is also pretty nervous now she’s through.

Finding her path

Rosie never planned to be a chef whilst growing up, but she didn’t really know what she wanted to do. After college, she went to Utrecht and did a short course in maths, thinking she was going to study psychology. However, when she returned to England, she found a job at the local butchers and realised she enjoyed working with food. That’s why she decided to continue her learning at Ashburton.

So much support

It was her executive head chef, Paul who encouraged her to do Young National Chef of the Year. She has done one cooking competition in the past, but she didn’t have the confidence to do a big one like this until he gave her the conviction to do it. It’s a brilliant feeling creating dishes and challenging herself in ways she hasn’t before.

Rosie met her fiancé at Ashburton where they both studied together, and he was the one who encouraged her as a chef and pushed her to work in fine dining restaurants. They have both been at L’Enclume for two and a half years and are really enjoying working there.

The dishes for the final

In the final, Rosie will be making agnolotti stuffed with squash and freshly made curds, with a sauce made from squash juice infused with cobnuts. They have an allotment in the Lake District and grew squash which was just so tasty so she thought that with creamy and tangy curds it would make a great pairing.

For her main course, she will serve steamed halibut with charred leeks alongside roasted celeriac puree with crispy celeriac nests and a horseradish hollandaise. She wanted to use the whey leftover from making the curds so plans to cook half the celeriac in that. Rosie loves the flavour of heavily roasted and charred vegetables and really wanted to use these techniques with the fish.

For dessert, she will be serving up a choux bun filled with woodruff and pear crémeux, a spiced crumb and pear pickled in a strawberry leaf pickle. She often forages and at work they use woodruff and leaves of berries in pickles and sauces, so she decided to base her dessert around a delicious pear crumble her mum used to make when she was little.

Dreaming of winning

Winning the title of Young National Chef of the Year would make her very proud. It’s one of the biggest competitions a chef could do so to walk away with that title would be huge. One day she hopes to open a restaurant with her partner so to have that accolade would help them get a following and hopefully encourage people to come and try their food.

Hopes for the future

Rosie feels so lucky to already work for some of the best chefs in the world. Simon, Paul and Alex have been role models for which there is no comparison. If she was to fast forward her career to ten years’ time, she hopes to have a Michelin starred restaurant that grows most of the produce on-site, to be consistently full and be creative, adapting menus based on the produce the farm grows. Her least favourite kitchen task is anything to do with the grease bin as it is super sticky and always smells awful!