A kitchen usually protects its cooks. Walls soften mistakes. Noise hides hesitation. If something goes wrong, the rhythm of service absorbs it.
At VỊ Battle®, there was no such cover.
The stage was open. The lights were unforgiving. A clock counted down from 30 minutes, not quietly, but insistently. Every movement was exposed: the pause before seasoning, the hand hovering too long over a garnish, the glance exchanged when time begins to compress.
Chef Dương from Little Bear serves his creation to a judge of VỊ Battle®.
This was VỊ Battle®, the most exposed module of MÊ VỊ, a contemporary culinary program conceived and organized by The Purpose Group, staged during HOZO City Tết Fest 2025. Created as a live culinary challenge for young chefs, VỊ Battle® was designed to explore how tradition evolves, how memory transforms, and how Tết ingredients, including tôm khô and củ kiệu, can be reinterpreted through modern craft and personal expression. Four teams, each representing a MICHELIN Guide 2025 restaurant, stepped forward to reveal how they behave when refinement collides with pressure.
Chef Thục Linh from The Monkey Gallery Dining, born in 2000, was the sole female chef in the VỊ Battle®.
The Format That Refuses to Be Gentle
Each team had 30 minutes to cook and present a dish built around a single ingredient. Midway through that sprint, they were interrupted for a rapid-fire Q&A to earn extra points.
The interview task was an intentional fracture of focus. Stocks continued to decline. Congee thickened. Final textures depended on seconds. And suddenly, the chef had to speak, perform clarity, and then return to the stove without losing rhythm. Under this format, composure became the clearest marker of skill and attitude readiness.
Chef Tâm from Quince Saigon stands to the left of Chef Hoà from Nephele during the rapid-fire Q&A (left) while Chef Sang from The Monkey Gallery Dining stands to the left of Chef Duy from Little Bear (right).
Battle One: Tôm Khô and Two Ways of Carrying Pressure
The first assignment focused on tôm khô, a Tết ingredient closely tied to prosperity, sharing, and togetherness. From festive mâm cơm to casual gatherings, dried shrimp carries both umami depth and emotional familiarity. At VỊ Battle®, the challenge was not simply to cook it well, but to rethink its texture, balance, and emotional resonance in a contemporary way.
The first battle paired Quince Saigon with Nephele, both working from the same ingredient, but arriving at very different interpretations.
Quince Saigon moved with speed and decisiveness. Their dish transformed the familiar beer-table pairing of dried shrimp and pickled scallion into a tapioca congee, built on shrimp stock and finished with a shrimp-forward sa tế and crisp shrimp bits. The idea, comfort sharpened by technique, landed immediately with the judges.
The duo from Quince Saigon: Chef Tâm (left) and Chef Duy (right).
Nephele’s approach was more radical in its choice of raw material. Their cháo tôm ruộng, built on ST25 rice and giant freshwater prawn (tôm càng) rather than the more familiar small dried shrimp, made a deliberate shift in scale. By choosing a prawn more often associated with freshness and prominence, the team challenged expectations of what tôm khô could represent. The decision was bold, not decorative, reframing a Tết ingredient through weight, clarity, and presence rather than nostalgia. The rice was lightly toasted and cooked in prawn stock to preserve sweetness and structure, allowing the prawn itself to remain the central voice rather than a supporting accent.
Chef Hoà (left) and Chef Long (right) from Nephele.
After the challenge, Chef Hòa of Nephele described pressure not as a single spike, but as a sequence. Each step brought its own tension, and the time limit became a constant presence, amplifying every doubt.
Cháo tôm ruộng from Nephele.
Chef Duy of Quince Saigon spoke of a different kind of pressure. Time did not rattle him. Neither did the crowd. What pressed hardest was self-expectation, and the realization that this was his first competition. For him, the real test was not the dish, but how far he could push himself without intervention.
The Tôm khô tapioca congee from Quince Saigon.
Two teams. One ingredient. Two very different ways of carrying pressure.
Watching from the sidelines, Julien Perraudin, chef patron of Quince Saigon, felt a rare loss of control. The immediate emotion was nervousness, and the restless urge to step in without being able to do so. For a chef accustomed to steering every detail, VỊ Battle® redrew the limits of mentorship. On that stage, responsibility shifted decisively toward the young chefs themselves, supported by their teams yet required to make judgment calls without correction. When they performed well, it was not triumph, but confirmation that guidance has done its work.
Chef Patron Jullien Perraudin poses for photos with his winning team of VỊ Battle® Day 1.
Meanwhile, Francis Thuận Trần, whose influence at Nephele extends beyond technique, believes that experiences like VỊ Battle® reshape how young chefs understand the profession, not simply as people who cook, but as creative voices with leadership and professional backbone. The pressure of the stage becomes formative, shaping how they grow into the role long after the noise fades.
Chef patron Francis Thuận Trần (in white) and the Nephele team on VỊ Battle® Day 1.
Battle Two: Củ Kiệu and the Final Minute
The second battle turned to củ kiệu, a Tết staple defined by contrasting acidity against richness and sharpness balanced by fat. Traditionally served as an accompaniment, củ kiệu rarely takes center stage. VỊ Battle® asked what happens when this supporting ingredient becomes the narrative itself.
This round brought The Monkey Gallery Dining face-to-face with Little Bear.
The Monkey Gallery Dining anchored their dish in memory with thịt kho củ kiệu served alongside rice. Pork jowl was marinated, slow-cooked for hours, then finished over charcoal on stage. A sauce reduced from pork bones and pickled củ kiệu, a bright chimichurri-style condiment, and rice cooked with pork fat using Séng Cù rice completed the plate. The result was dense, restrained, and deliberate.
Chef Linh (left) and Chef Sang (right) from The Monkey Gallery Dining.
Pressure followed closely. Chef Sang spoke of the audience, the clock, and the demands of representation. Chef Linh admitted she arrived with high expectations. When asked what she would change, she did not mention flavor or technique.
She said she would be calmer.
The final minutes fractured her focus, subtly but decisively. Later, she revealed how compressed preparation had been, owing to a busy restaurant schedule and limited testing; even the rice had been finalized just a day before the battle.
Thịt kho củ kiệu served with rice by The Monkey Gallery Dining.
Across the stage, Little Bear presented a cooler counterpoint. Their chilled củ kiệu salad layered pickled củ kiệu with lotus root, daikon pickling liquid, smoked bacon, toasted nuts, a smooth củ kiệu purée, and a delicate củ kiệu sorbet. Most elements were prepared in advance, shifting pressure from cooking to composition.
Chef Duy (left) and Chef Dương (right) from Little Bear.
Chef Bảo Duy of Little Bear described his anxiety as stemming from the need to execute his colleague Chef Dương Đặng’s idea correctly. The concept belonged to Dương and his role was support. Their nerves peaked only at the end, when a layer refused to sit as planned. It was the kind of imperfection that feels minor until it unfolds under lights.
Chilled củ kiệu salad by Little Bear.
Asked what he would change, Dương, born 2004 and thus the youngest chef in the finale, answered simply, "nothing." Preparation had been complete. The stage was about execution.
Watching from nearby, Nhật Duy, executive chef of Little Bear, felt a mix of pride and unease that bordered on familial. Seeing young chefs step into VỊ Battle® sharpened his sense of responsibility, the understanding that mentorship does not stop at training. The value of the stage lies in forcing young chefs out of their safety zones and into a space where growth begins precisely because comfort ends.
The Little Bear team with Executive Chef Nhật Duy (far right) on VỊ Battle® Day 2.
Meanwhile, The Monkey Gallery Dining’s Executive Chef Hậu Trần saw the competition as more than a technical test. Standing in front of a crowd exposes gaps no kitchen can hide, not only in cooking, but in communication, posture, and confidence. What matters is not the absence of pressure, but the ability to carry it with grace, and to remain composed when skill alone is no longer enough.
The Monkey Gallery Dining team celebrates their win with Executive Chef Hậu Trần (approaching the stage on the right) on VỊ Battle® Day 2.
Beyond the Battle
Winning VỊ Battle® did not end the journeys.
The two victorious teams, Quince Saigon and The Monkey Gallery Dining, earned a place at MÊ VỊ Battle®Banquet on December 30, where they cooked alongside Chef Vương and the 1-star Michelin CoCo Dining team. The shift was deliberate, from competition to collaboration, from isolation to shared authorship.
VỊctory poses for Quince Saigon (left) and The Monkey Gallery Dining (right).
Most of all, VỊ Battle® revealed a generation of chefs learning to cook without cover, no kitchen walls, no head chef stepping in, and no safety net beyond preparation, teamwork, and judgment. In Saigon’s fast-evolving dining scene, that exposure matters.
Before young chefs can redefine Vietnamese cuisine, they must first learn how to handle pressure in public and still cook with intention.
Chef Võ Thành Vương (center) and his team from the Michelin 1-star Coco Dining restaurant pose for photos with the winners from The Monkey Gallery Dining and Quince Saigon.
At VỊ Battle®, the clock does not just measure time; it also measures readiness.
The MÊ VỊ Battle® Banquet.
