Young National Chef of the Year 2018: Danny Young, December 2017

Young National Chef of the Year 2018 winner, Danny Young gives The Staff Canteen a monthly insight into what it is like to be a sous chef at Northcote Manor as well as all the other exciting opportunities he is set to experience in the coming year.

For his second blog, Danny tells us about his involvement in the festive menus at Northcote, what his plans are for Christmas and getting ready for his fishing trip to Norway in January.

Since my last blog, I’ve been very busy here at Northcote working alongside the team and Lisa, who has now taken full control over the kitchen and its development.

I’ve been fully involved in the changes to the menus in the run up to Christmas and preparing for all the bespoke Christmas events we do for our customers.

The new menus are well in place now; the Christmas Lunch menu which customers are really enjoying, has been taken to the next level, as we do with every new menu. We are now looking ahead to the new menus in 2018, as at Northcote we always try to plan ahead and be ready for when the Christmas season ends.

We’re always working on new dishes but I can’t give anything away about the new menus just yet! Lisa is a big advocate of development and experimentation so it’s a great place for me to explore flavours and techniques.

As we all know Christmas is intense in this industry and there are lots going on at Northcote but it is also exciting for us to work on dishes that we might only do at this time of year. Christmas is a time for being at home with family and friends so we try to make sure everyone gets time off and isn’t overworked – we all want to enjoy it! I’ll be with my family during my time off over Christmas and I know all the staff are looking forward to the staff Christmas party in January!

My fishing trip to Norway is in January, which is only round the corner, and I’m very much looking forward to experiencing the different landscapes, culture and foods, but not so much the cold! I’m also looking forward to meeting and spending time with some of the greatest chefs in the UK on this trip. We will be going fishing for skrei which is from the cod family but a new fish to me and I’ve not used it at any point in my career so I’m really interested to learn more about its source and flavours.

In my next blog, I’ll let you know how the trip went and if I caught any skrei!

Danny is Young National Chef of the Year 2018 having won the competition at the Restaurant Show at Olympia London in October. Danny is currently sous chef at Northcote in Lancashire. His first experience in fine dining came after he left school when he secured a job working in a Michelin starred kitchen. Danny has come in second place in the Young National Chef of the Year competition for the last two years and was North West Young Chef of the Year in 2014.