17-year-old Deb Ridley may have missed her high school graduation but has become an award-winning chef, snagging the gold at the ACT Nestlé Golden Chef’s Hat Awards last month.

The young commis chef at Ondine – European Brasserie stood out from the rest, winning regionals on her first try.

How she first fell in love with food is a modern love story, and it started with Year 10 work experience.

“Three years ago, I was just scrolling on Instagram, and it was all these cake videos. I was like, I want to do that,” says Deb.

She applied to work at Rosie Cakes in Kaleen. “I got to decorate cakes for a week, and I realised that I really enjoyed it.” It was her first taste of what would become her specialty – dessert.

Ondine, co-owned and run by four-time Golden Chefs regional winner Keaton McDonnell, may seem like an unusual pick for a first job to some, but even at her tender age, Deb knew what she wanted.

“I knew I didn’t want to start off at McDonald’s or KFC,” she says. “I was looking online specifically for European restaurants.

“I was used to Mexican food, so I wanted to do something different, something I hadn’t had any experience in.”

Keaton decided to bring a then 15-year-old Deb in for an interview with her mum. He jokes that it was the “sass” that inspired him to welcome her aboard.

“But genuinely, I started when I was 15 as well,” says Keaton. “Anybody who is that passionate and interested, and blessed enough to find something that they may really love, is someone who is worth giving a go.”

Deb jumped straight into the kitchen, and into an apprenticeship for Commercial Catering Cert III, learning almost everything on the job.

Keaton, who won his first regional Golden Chefs at 18, encouraged her to enter her first regional.

“I just went to learn and to see who I might be competing with next year – And then I won. I was shocked. Mum started crying.”

Like any great chef, Deb stays cool under pressure, which helped her in her choice to stray from the beaten path leaving school after Year 10.

“Nearly everyone at my school said I was doing the wrong thing when I left.

“I didn’t really have anyone other than my parents and my siblings who thought that I was doing the right thing,” she says.

“They all thought that I was just dropping out of school because I was bad at school … But I knew that I wanted to be a chef.”

Shifting kitchen culture

While Deb says the number one lesson that she’s learnt from Keaton is the classic clean as you go (“which I’m still working on!”) Keaton says that he has learnt a thing or two from his young protégé.

“I’ve been a head chef for 13 years. Seeing someone start, not only at 15, but as a female at that age, is quite different.

“I’ve definitely grown as a head chef and a mentor,” says Keaton. “Kitchens as a place to work have vastly changed, and it’s 100 per cent for the better.”

“Everyone’s really supportive,” says Deb. “It’s not as stressful as I thought it would be. I thought it was going to be very demanding but Keaton’s a very good teacher. I learn something new basically every day.”

“When I was an apprentice, we started off with 120 students,” says Keaton. “Three years after that, there was four of us left cooking, partially because of the aggressiveness in the kitchen, but also just because you have to sacrifice a lot of weekends and late nights.”

He laughs that being a chef means never having a Valentine’s Day on Valentine’s Day.

When it comes to balancing a culinary career, and the commitments that come with being a teen, Deb jokes that it “Helps that I don’t have a social life.”

“My body’s adjusted now to starting later in the day and ending later at night.”

Next on the chopping block for Deb is facing the other 11 top chefs from across Australia and New Zealand, battling it out at Fine Food Australia in Sydney this September.

One winner will be crowned Golden Chef of the Year and will travel with the Australian Culinary Olympics Junior Team to the IKA Culinary Olympics in Stuttgart, Germany.

Much like her mentor, who worked as a chef internationally several times before returning to Canberra, Deb wants to see the world. “I want to discover different places and different foods.”

Luckily, Keaton says, “a great thing about the industry is that there’s always jobs and opportunities overseas”.

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