Smoked short rib, palm smoked port demi sauce, capered blackberries, sunchoke purée, red chard two ways

Love it

Capered blackberries?

uwu

Clever presentation with the chard! Smoked short rib is mouthwatering ! Slice, dip and it would be a sensual mouthful. Nice, nice NICE!!!

This is stunning. Has this won awards??? Can it win awards???? Not that I’ve tasted it, but…..damn

this is beautiful and perfect

You truly made a sculpture out of food, it’s lovely.

i really thought i saw mashed potatoes.

Well, too me the short rib looks too clean, too perfect, like it was cut cold and the sides were wiped clean. It doesn’t look like it would be tender either, just barely, but if it was the fibers would look different. The chard chip looks fine, but the other chard is raw, and while baby kale is tender, mature chard is not pleasant to eat. Sauteed kale would be more appetizing for the diner, given them more value but would not have been as photogenic. The puree looks good. The rib is smoked, plus the sauce, to be expected as they were most likely cooked together.
I didn’t know if you could smoke food with palm leaves or wood, so I had to look that up, and I can only say that my searches all day that no, palm leaves and twigs are not good for smoking. So I can’t say for sure, perhaps you know something the internet is not aware of, but I’d ask “would the diner see value in it, or does it excite their senses/expectations?”
Capers get their unique flavor from themselves, which in turn flavor the brine with a completely different flavor than that same brine would have without the raw caper berries. Like how pickled cabbage makes sauerkraut (fermented) but the same technique to cucumbers produces a different flavor. But, it sounds cool. If pickles are “pickled” than perhaps capers are “capered”. Than is stands to reason that sauerkraut is sauerkrauted. The berries might have added a contrasting sweet/funk flavor, so I’m not just against that, it might work.
I know you got some good feedback, but I’m being honest. I’ve judged many chefs at competitions and have stood by while other Certified Master Chefs, (with Olympic experience and abilities far beyond my own) have critiqued whole tables of dishes, all made with care and precision, but sometimes incorporating in judgement or execution. I have been torn up myself when i was younger, and it was not easy to be told that something you worked hard on didn’t work in some way. But I bit my tongue and knew that they (almost always) had a better sense and I was too caught up in my own work to see it.
Think about it like this: every great band has a producer who sits in the booth and guides them, sometimes letting them create, but sometimes nudging them back and sometimes suggesting things. Great bands know when to put their egos down and listen. I’m not your producer, of course, it’s just an analogy to get the point across, as far too often most people just press LIKE and move on.
I know this is reddit and every couch potato has an opinion, but it’s always our job as chefs to be self critical, to constantly improve and to move on and get better.
Look at the plates. What value did it add? Did they eat it?
At the vary least be wary of making plates for Instagram.
All the best going fwd.