To Be the Real Top Chef

By Stacie Stukin / Los Angeles

You could call it the World Cup of cooking. Every two years, chefs from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas, all looking to make a name in the culinary world, gather in Lyons, France, to compete in the Bocuse d'Or World Cuisine Contest, an Iron Chef--style cook-off named in honor of the legendary three--star Michelin chef and Lyons resident Paul Bocuse, who started the competition. The winner gets 20,000 euros (or about $26,000), a statuette of an aproned and toqued Bocuse balanced on a globe, and bragging rights to being the best young chef in the world. No American has ever made it onto the winner's podium in the nine previous meets that have been held. But Gavin Kaysen means to change that. At just 27, Kaysen is already head chef at El Bizcocho, the restaurant at the Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego, Calif., which the Zagat Survey has named one of the best places to dine in that city, and he has outfilleted, outsauteed and outroasted 30 other contenders to become the official U.S. representative at the Bocuse. "If there is something I want, I go and get it," Kaysen says. "And I want to win the Bocuse."

The competition requires each chef, aided by an assistant, to complete two platters of food, one featuring a meat course (Bresse chicken, this year), the other showcasing seafood (Norwegian white halibut and king crab), and three side dishes--all sufficient for 14 servings--within just a 5 1/2-hr. period. The food is judged on presentation and, of course, taste. Competitors train for the cooking challenge with the single-minded discipline usually found in elite athletes. For Kaysen, this means heading to the kitchen on his day off to sharpen skills like butchering a whole chicken. He began practicing for the Bocuse in January 2006. By November, he could skin, cut and fillet a bird in seven minutes. But he knows that isn't good enough, since every second of prep time will count. His goal is to do it in three minutes flat. With his eyes closed. "I know the anatomy of a chicken better than I know my own," he says. His wife Linda videotapes his 12-to-16-hour practice sessions, which gives her an excuse to spend time with her husband and enables him to review his technique and figure out how he can better use his time in the kitchen. "I grew up watching the Bocuse on television," says Linda, a native of Sweden, where the Bocuse is a popular event, like the Super Bowl. "I know what it takes to win, and I want it as bad as he does."

By the time the competition starts on Jan. 23, Kaysen will have cooked his way through hundreds of pounds of butter and cream, poultry, fish and vegetables. He will also have spent more than $150,000 on equipment like custom-made serving platters and a $22,000 combination steamer--convection oven he will use in the kitchen stadium where the competition takes place, coaches to help him refine his routine and several trips to France to charm the best purveyors of meat, fish and produce so that he will get the quality he needs when he goes to buy ingredients for the big day. Many of his competitors are subsidized by their governments, but Kaysen has had to find his own sponsors. He has enlisted Uncle Ben's, Brandt Meats, De Buyer cookware and his employer, the Rancho Bernardo Inn. His chef's coat looks like a racing jersey, with the logos of his backers adorning his sleeves.

Kaysen has also attracted impressive mentors, including Daniel Boulud, the award-winning French chef who owns restaurants in New York City, Las Vegas and Palm Beach, Fla., and Charlie Trotter, the famed Chicago chef who has been a Bocuse judge. Both have high hopes for their protege. "Gavin has the passion for French cuisine, a very good palate, and he's a master of technique and timing," says Boulud. "And he's very meticulous and detail oriented, which is crucial." Trotter, who has been following Kaysen's career since the younger chef applied for an internship in his kitchen two years ago, thinks this is the first time the U.S. has a chance to make it into the top three. But like politics, he notes, nothing is certain. "I liken Gavin to the Barack Obama of gastronomic figures," he observes. "He's not fully tested, yet he clearly impresses people." Lyons--and that chicken, halibut and crab--awaits.