World’s best young chef Ardy Ferguson on exploring his multicultural heritage through food
The San Pellegrino Young Chef Academy Competition 2024-25 winner never planned to cook. Now his dishes tell stories of his past – and future
“Cooking wasn’t always part of the plan,” says Ardy Ferguson, sous chef at Belon, a one-Michelin-star restaurant in Hong Kong. “I was actually originally in engineering.”
He recently won the sixth San Pellegrino Young Chef Academy (SPYCA) competition and with it the title of the world’s best young chef.
With this victory, Ferguson, who won the best chef award at the inaugural Young Chef Young Waiter Hong Kong contest in 2023, has confirmed Hong Kong’s status as a hub of world-class culinary talent.
From his childhood in Jakarta, Indonesia, to his time spent studying in Canada to working in Hong Kong, Ferguson’s life has been underpinned by cross-cultural exchange.
While attending the University of British Columbia for electrical engineering, he decided to take time off to work at a bakery and quickly realised how much he enjoyed being in the kitchen.