Top chef Ismo Sipeläinen plans to impress the judges at the World Chefs Championship in Turin in June. In addition to pans and blenders, his team from Finland will bring Medanta work clothes – and probably Lapland knives as well.
Training for the Bocuse d'Or, the world chefs' championship, is a full-time job. Finnish top chef Ismo Sipeläinen , 27, and his assistant Johan Kurkela , 21, started training for the Turin competition in February. Everything has to be ready for the competition, including the step patterns, which starts on June 12th.
When you aim for the top, you have to hone your performance accordingly. To ensure that there is not a single wasted step in the competition, the training kitchen built at the Perho restaurant school is as close to the competition kitchen in Turin as possible. The duration of each work phase is measured with an accuracy of one second. The outfits are also tip top. Sipeläinen and Kurkela will train in Medanta clothing throughout their representative season.
Known for his showy mustache, Sipeläinen belongs to the breed of chefs who prefer to wear a white chef's coat.
“Black pants and shoes, white jacket. That's my favorite. And a white apron for competitions.”
But Sipeläinen is not absolute. "Clothes are always tied to the restaurant concept. This is a matter of style and opinion. White is not the best choice for all restaurants."
It is also important that the chef's jacket breathes, is light to wear and fits well. "If it fits poorly, you have to jerk it. It interferes with your work."
Especially in competition, you can't afford that.
Lapland's pine cones and flavors from the forest
Sipeläinen, who has won awards in many cooking competitions, spends his days full of testing. At least five days a week in the Perho training kitchen in Helsinki, he trains and thinks about the ingredients for the competition. Lapland's puikula and a few forest treasures are on track to make it to Turin, Italy.
"Finnish food is not branded as strongly as our Nordic neighbors. When we look more closely and proudly, we also have a lot of great things: berries, mushrooms, elk, grouse, perch, pike perch, pike..."
In Turin, Sipeläinen wants to impress the jury. There are 20 countries participating in the competition, with the top 10 advancing to the finals in Lyon, France in 2019.
Sipeläinen is not going to the competition feeling cold. He was Matti Jämsén's assistant in the same competition in 2010–11. The team is now coached by Eero Vottonen , who alternates between boosting and calming the team.
Good work clothes add height
Sipeläinen's team is not traveling to Italy with very little equipment. They are bringing worktops, an induction cooker, an oven, a warming table and lamps from Helsinki. Food processors, blenders, a cutter, knives and work bowls. Pans, frits, dryers and hand towels.
The plates are made on site. You can choose from four options.
During the competition, all participants wear the competition organizer's chef's jackets, but outside the competition kitchen, the teams are identified by their own chef team uniforms. For Sipeläinen's team, these are Medanta's clothes: white short-sleeved chef's jackets, white aprons and black chef's trousers. The cheerleaders also wear Medanta.
"It's stylish that each group has its own matching clothing. That way, you don't end up with teams that look like collectibles, with one wearing a hoodie, another a jacket, and a third wearing flip-flops."
Sipeläinen believes that good work clothes lift the mood.
"Workwear should be so good that it doesn't take five centimeters off your own length, but adds two and a half centimeters. It creates the same feeling – like a postural movement – that you get when you put on a suit."
"Medanta's pants are not only comfortable to wear but also look good. If you pull new pants out of the freezer and wear them with a small jacket, you can go straight to your leisure activities."
Who?
Ismo Sipeläinen has worked at top restaurants in Helsinki: Finnjäveli, Olo and GW Sundmans. Now he is focusing on the Bocuse D'Or competition and occasionally does gig work.
Finnish representative at the 2018–2019 Bocuse D'Or competition
2016 Second place in the Nordic Chefs' Championships
2015 Chef of the Year
Winner of the 2013 Nordic Junior Chef competition
More information about the Bocuse D'Or competition on the ELO Foundation website
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