Young chef of the year enjoys British ingredients

The winner of the Michelin Young Chef Award for 2025 has said she is enjoying cooking with British ingredients since making the move to the UK from South Africa.

Ash Valenzuela-Heeger came over to be with her wife Erin and the pair set up the Riverine Rabbit in Stirchley, Birmingham.

Their restaurant has also caught the eye of the Michelin Guide and it received a Bib Gourmand award in recognition of food which is both good quality and good value.

Ash described the young chef award as a "nice pat on the back" and the couple said they were "very happy" with their restaurant.

Before coming to the UK, Ash had her own restaurant in Cape Town and said "leaving a continent is a very hard thing to do".

The 35-year-old said "hats off to anyone who does it" and explained it was especially difficult because she came over in 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic.

Before setting up a new restaurant in Birmingham the couple ran a number of pop-ups in different locations around the city.

Michelin said they had been "generating buzz in Brummie circles for some time" before opening Riverine Rabbit.

Ash said they eventually settled on Stirchley because they spent a lot of time there "hanging out" and she said there were "a lot of cool independent businesses on the high street".

"We felt a kinship to Stirchley," she said.

Ash said she really enjoyed working with Asian ingredients and techniques, but when she moved to Birmingham she had to adapt to use British ingredients.

She said she was really enjoying working with new ingredients such as scallops and oily fish and said: "Even the beef tastes different over here."

She admitted "there's a lot of indigenous flora that you get in South Africa which I do miss a lot," but trying new ingredients was "fun".

Presenting her with the young chef award, the Michelin Guide said Ash's "original cooking is big on flavour and draws on influences from her native South Africa to across Asia".

It also praised the couple for an "inventive and invigorating restaurant".

Riverine Rabbit is a lot smaller than the restaurant in Cape Town, but Erin, 29, said they were "very happy just serving our 12 guests".

Erin divides her time between the restaurant and her other job as a materials scientist at the University of Birmingham, specialising in aerospace ceramics, and said there were no plans to expand at this stage.

Ash said they "just make things a little bit better every day".

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