Wowing judges with an artistic creation of Chicken Roulade
Chef K.Y.M. Gunesekera: Hopes to open his own restaurant in Sri Lanka one day
At the Food and Hospitality Asia Maldives International Culinary Challenge and Exhibition 2017 held in Male’ earlier this year, the award of Best Young Chef in the Maldives was won by K.Y.M. Gunesekera, 24, who comes from Nittambuwa.
There were 564 competitors from 67 resorts taking part in the Culinary Challenge, which makes Gunesekera’s achievement remarkable, especially as other participants came from several regional countries as well as from the Maldives. The judging was by a panel of international chefs and the competition was run under the auspices of the World Association of Chefs.
Gunesekera has been employed for 30 months at Baros Maldives where he is one of the kitchen brigade of 40 working under the Executive Sous Chef, Upul Wijethilake, who is also from Sri Lanka. Baros Maldives is a boutique island resort with three gourmet-standard restaurants serving exquisite international cuisine as well as catering for off-island dining on a sandbank, lagoon deck or dhoni cruises and In Villa Meal Service for its 75 overwater and beachside villas.
For the competition, Gunesekera, known as Yasitha to the resort’s guests, had to prepare and present within 90 minutes, one main course dish free style and dessert. All the ingredients had to be supplied by the competitor himself together with the recipe. Gunesekera stunned the judges with his own artistic creation of Chicken Roulade in three colours using natural ingredients. As well as being judged the Best Young Chef of the Year he also won a silver medal in a separate category with his Seafood Lasagne.
An exquisite presentation of lox by Chef Gunesekera
Gunesekera had no plans to become a chef when he left Junior School but a friend suggested he should enrol at the Sunray Hotel & Chefs Training Academy in Gampaha. He studied food and beverage there for 18 months including a six-month training period at the Green Paradise Hotel in Dambulla. He then joined Russel’s in Colombo where he spent 18 months as member of a team catering for private functions.
Keen to learn more about cooking, he accepted a job at a café in Male’, the capital island of the Maldives, and worked there for 15 months. His career break came when he saw an advertisement for chefs to work at Baros Maldives and applied. After a rigorous interview he was accepted and began training under Chef Wijethilake.
“It is thanks to the training I received from Chef Upul of Baros and from Anil Perera of the Sunray Hotel School that I was able to succeed in the competition,” he says modestly.
Although he is only 24, Gunesekera has the broad smile and air of bonhomie that defines a mature chef. He exudes an air of confidence and commitment to create dishes that are a pleasure to the eye as well as the palate. When I asked him what is his favourite dish, he smiled a little sheepishly and replied: “Chicken curry and coconut sambol.”
Then he added that he likes to bring a contemporary touch to Sri Lankan cuisine and confessed that his ambition, after gaining more experience, is to open his own small restaurant in Sri Lanka. He plans to concentrate on fine dining using traditional Sri Lankan ingredients presented in an exciting, modern manner.
He happily recommends to young people in Sri Lanka to take up training to become chefs. He says that his job is not just cooking but involves artistry as well, together with cost control and minimising wastage. He is amazed that even though Baros is a small island, ingredients are imported from around the world for every type of cuisine.
He acknowledges that he is lucky in having an experienced Sri Lankan chef in Upul Wijethilake to work under. Several of his colleagues at Barosare are Sri Lankan too and they all work as a team to provide guests with the best. This young man from Nittambuwa, with his cheerful approach to his job, even under pressure during an international competition, seems destined for a great career as a Chef.