Camp of Leaders 2026

The main lesson is how AI can serve gastronomy, in the industry and in the classroom. The recipes come second.

The students will work through ChefPro.ai, an application I co-founded and of which I am the main architect, built to keep culinary techniques alive, to upskill students, and to hold on to the knowledge of professionals and masters before it is lost. Through it they learn sustainability, conservation and quality assurance as daily disciplines of the kitchen.

For two days the institute becomes a fine dining restaurant, run to the best practice of the industry and to the standard of a Michelin-level experience. Nothing is left out. The students cost every dish and source every ingredient as they would in a commercial kitchen, where each gram has a price and each supplier has a name.

Four courses, each built on Bornean ingredients and the people who first cooked with them.

I · The Acid and Fluid Prelude. Blue belly prawn, cured for forty-five seconds in a clear Bambangan nectar, with charcoal-grilled sea snail, sea grapes and slivers of Tuhau. It follows the Melanau umai; the Bambangan and the Tuhau come from the Kadazandusun kitchens of Sabah.

II · Terroir, Lipids and Grain Canvas. King crab glazed with dabai over binchotan, with a cream of toasted dabai kernels ground on the stone and a shattering crisp of black Bario rice, the rice of the Kelabit highlands.

III · Smoke, Vapour and Timber Vessel. Manok pansuh, after the Iban: poularde rolled with a duck-fat mousseline, cooked in green bamboo, and served in a clear consommé scented with wild Tuhau and Tepus ginger.

IV · Coastline and Deep Estuary. Charcoal-roasted estuary grouper with crackling skin, in a wild sour-fruit and lemongrass broth with terung asam and toasted pearls of sago, the Melanau staple.

Each course turns on one idea a student can carry into any kitchen, with no laboratory equipment:

• Cold. An acid drawn clear by gravity through linen at 2 to 4°C, which cures the prawn in seconds.
• Gentle warmth. Dabai softened by its own enzymes, held at 42 to 45°C over a bain-marie.
• Vapour. A still made from a stockpot and an upturned, ice-filled lid, to capture the scent of the wild gingers.
• Restraint. A broth reduced at a bare simmer, 70 to 75°C, so its brightest notes survive.

On 9 December the students serve the dinner at Truffles, the institute’s restaurant. It is the test of everything the camp sets out to teach, and the guests will be the judges.

I will add a note here after the camp.