Sino's Vasyl Fysiuk wins UK Young Chef final
The Sino sous chef beat nine other finalists in London with a pork and elderberry dish rooted in Ukrainian flavours, and now heads to Milan in 2027.
Vasyl Fysiuk, senior sous chef at the Ukrainian restaurant Sino in Notting Hill, wins the UK regional final of the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy Competition 2026-27, earning a place at the international grand final in Milan next year.
The final ran on 14 October at Le Cordon Bleu in Bloomsbury, London. Ten finalists each had five hours to cook ten plates of a single signature dish for the judging panel.
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Five hours, ten plates, one dish of pork, elderberry and smoked pear — and a ticket to Milan.
Fysiuk's winning plate, titled “Becoming, to this day…”, pairs pork tenderloin glazed with elderberry and smoked pear with cabbage, beetroot, apple and sauerkraut — a combination that leans on the same pickled, fruit-forward flavours running through Sino's menu.
Judges included chefs Emily Roux, Angelo Sato, Sally Abé, Will Murray, Chantelle Nicholson and Stuart Ralston, drawn from across London's current fine-dining scene.
The UK heat is one of more than twenty regional finals feeding into the Milan final, each run to the same ten-finalist, five-hour format. Germany's leg follows in Frankfurt later this month, before mentors and winners converge on Italy in 2027.
A kitchen built on Ukrainian roots
Sino opened on All Saints Road in May 2025, founded by Polina Sychova with chef Eugene Korolev, who is also president of Bocuse d'Or Ukraine. The restaurant's menu reworks dishes such as chicken Kyiv and cherry-glazed catfish, and Fysiuk's competition dish draws on that same pantry of pickles, grains and stone fruit.
The win gives a restaurant open for under eighteen months a result on a competition circuit usually dominated by longer-established dining rooms.
Next stop, Milan
Fysiuk will be mentored by Tom Phillips, executive chef at Restaurant Story, ahead of the international final in Milan in 2027, where he represents the UK against winners from other regional heats, including the Latin America final held in Panama.
S.Pellegrino has run the competition since 2014, pairing each national winner with an established chef mentor in the run-up to the global final, where a single plate can still make or break months of preparation.
