Former MasterChef winner turned head chef for 74-meter Naia talks embracing the demands of charter, his love for Thai food — and the inspiration behind his winning dishes.
Andrew Durham is talking through his winning menu for the 2026 MYBA Superyacht Chefs' Competition. “When I read the brief for the first time I was caught off guard — it was such an unusual brief! First of all, you’d never normally see breakfast dishes in a competition. And then on top of that, it had to have a flower theme...”
Durham rose to the challenge and set out to push himself creatively, refining his menu to impress Michelin-starred judges, Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen, Colin McGurran and Antonio Mellino. He approached it by doing a mind map, thinking about what flower flavors you typically use in cuisine. “I had a million ideas, thought of saffron and vanilla, the seed part of the orchid, elderflower… and it all just came together quite nicely from there.”
Durham started with a chawanmushi, a Japanese steamed egg custard, a riff on one of his favorite dishes of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. To make it, he used Marigold eggs with saffron-infused dashi, added Balik smoked salmon, Ossetra caviar and pickled Shimeji mushrooms, then topped it with an elegant herb tuile.
Marigold eggs were also the basis of the second course — a twist on Turkish eggs. “Marigolds are beautiful French eggs where the chickens are fed on marigold flowers, so they're full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, and also give the yolks a very vibrant yellow color,” Durham explains. He served it with rose-scented yogurt, thickened overnight after being infused with rose water.
The third course — an açai bowl — was based on another of Durham’s favorite breakfast dishes. “It’s almost like having ice cream for breakfast, which I think is really fun.”
He made a chia seed pudding with coconut and vanilla, layered on wildflower honey granola, and added exotic fruits marinated in elderflower syrup. The açai itself was turned into a sorbet, infused with hibiscus syrup and banana. “So there were four different types of flowers in the dish — very floral, very gardeny and very light,” Durham explains.
After two decades as a chef, Durham knows what flavor combinations will work when creating a new dish. “At the beginning of your career, it's a lot of trial and error, but after 20 years, you've developed a really good palate. But there are still times where you can’t be sure — for example, with the chawanmushi dish, I didn’t know until I'd made it!”
Durham spent the first half of his career in the Royal Navy but it wasn’t until he entered and reached the final of MasterChef UK in 2019 that his world began to open up. “My phone started blowing up,” he recalls. “I received offers from the Gordon Ramsay Restaurants Group and Black Sheep Restaurants in Hong Kong. One of the calls came from the captain of a superyacht who thought that, with my experience cooking at sea and after seeing me on the show, I’d be a great fit as head chef on a yacht.”
Durham initially turned down the opportunity to pursue his dream of opening his own restaurant, but circumstances worked against him.
“There was Brexit, Covid, the cost-of-living crisis… and then I suddenly remembered that offer from the captain,” he says. “So I searched through my LinkedIn, found his number, and asked whether he still needed a chef for the yacht. He said, ‘Yes, absolutely.’ A few days later, I was flying out to Barcelona.”
His years in the Royal Navy have equipped him with the experience needed to handle life as a superyacht chef. “Provisioning is one of the biggest challenges,” he explains. “You really have to plan ahead. It’s not like working in a restaurant, where you can place an order late at night after service and have everything arrive the next morning. You have to think carefully about everything you might need for the next one to two weeks.”
Bar one season, Durham has been with Naia for four years. “The crew has changed many times over four years, but there's just something about the boat. It just attracts cool people, really talented professionals. It's always been a lot of fun.”
Cooking for Naia’s charter guests is also a challenge he relishes and has also significantly expanded his culinary skill set. “It’s far more dynamic than working in a restaurant,” he says. “In a restaurant, you set your menu, practice it, refine it, and repeat the same dishes day in, day out, until everything runs like clockwork. On a charter, though, you have to be the king of the ‘anything’ menu — able to cook whatever guests want, at any time.”
“You’re constantly trying to prepare for the big evening meal you’ve planned, but all day long you’re stopping to fulfil different requests. It’s incredibly dynamic and very fast-paced.”
It has also broadened what he enjoys cooking. “I went from being quite pigeonholed in a modern British style with a strong Thai influence to now being very familiar with Lebanese, Mexican, American, and many other cuisines,” he says. “They’re all very different, but I’ve become really accustomed to them, which is fantastic. It’s a great thing for any chef.”
At home, he admits his Thai wife of 15 years — who is also a chef — does most of the cooking, and he still draws significant inspiration from her. “I’ve learned all the proper, authentic Thai techniques and regional dishes that she can do,” he says. “And when I’m in a competition, I always tend to bring that influence in somewhere.”
Off duty, he tends to cook in a more traditional British style. “My kids eat Thai food most days, so when I get home, they love a roast dinner, spaghetti bolognese or a cottage pie.”
He is a self-confessed “food obsessive,” often spending hours scrolling through Instagram for inspiration. “I drive my wife mad,” he laughs. “She’ll say, ‘Can you stop thinking about food for just five seconds?’”
Asked what winning the award means to him and the team, he says: “It’s really validating. It’s nice to be told you’re good enough — that’s a great feeling. It’s also brilliant for the yacht; it raises our profile and benefits everyone involved. It’s very humbling, really.”
“It’s also nice to know you haven’t wasted the last 20 years — that you’ve still got it,” he laughs.