Platter design: Laura Meriluoto, Photograph: Santeri Stenvall

The brief included expectations that visuals should be related to nature and Finnish forms and have sensitive beauty about it with some amount of details.

The vine of little flowers blooming came to mind when thinking about the current world’s situation: the 2020 pandemic had been closing everything down and now slowly things were getting better and things starting to open up. The feelings of hope and positivity made me think of flower buds and flowers opening with a vine that had an open organic shape to it. The concept story was refined to a context of tomato garden and harvest season.

Meal box design: Heidi Uppa
Photograph: Santeri Stenvall

The idea of using Iittala’s Vakka box came from designer Heidi Uppa, who also was responsible of designing the visual for the package using the same illustrative elements as the rest of the competition materials. The box also has grains of organic barley to keep the dishes in the right temperature.

The theme of this takeaway assignment for every candiate was "Tomato". This section of the competition was something completely new in the Bocuse d'Or competition.

Sketch of the Tomato-assignment menu. I made the sketches after their final form and look was finished by the team.
The drawings were presented on a screen as the menus were explained to the audience and served for the jury in the finals.

Team
President: Eero Vottonen
Candidate: Mikko kaukonen
Commis: Anni Peräkylä
Coach: Heikki Liekola

Promotion Manager: Mari Cadaut

Design-team
Art Direction/Graphic Design/illustration:
Merja Jaskara
Platter Design/Ideation: Laura Meriluoto
Meal Box design: Heidi Uppa
Photography: Santeri Stenvall

The outlook of the food servings was completely created by the chef team. The idea of opening flowers and vine element was used to decorate them, to achieve visual continuity on the plate, platter, meal box and menu brochure.

About Bocuse d'Or

Chef Paul Bocuse created the Bocuse d’Or International Culinary Competition in 1987 in order to broaden the public’s understanding of the extraordinary dedication, hard work, practice and precision required to execute the very finest cuisine. It is the most rigorous culinary competition in the world, held every two years in Lyon, France.

24 countries are selected to compete and each country’s team is comprised of one chef and one commis assistant.

The jury is composed of the most illustrious chefs of the planet. Beyond a mere cooking contest, the Bocuse d’Or is a show that draws extraordinary media coverage. Many talented chefs have made a name for themselves thanks to the contest.