The much anticipated annual Compass Chef of the Year final took place at the Restaurant Show on 9 October, at London’s Earl’s Court 2. From over 200 entries, a total of 24 chefs from across Compass UK & Ireland stepped up to the plate to battle it out for the Junior, Senior and newly launched Apprentice Chef of the Year titles.
Eight junior chefs had just 90 minutes create a three-course meal, whilst eight senior chefs were given two hours to cook up a four-course meal, showcasing British produce and reflecting the latest food trends for a panel of industry judges, including Brian Turner and Jason Atherton.
In the 2013 Senior competition, development chef Chris Pulfer (pictured below) from Restaurant Associates took the gold, closely followed by James Hart from UCL London with silver and Shaun Reason from the Royal Military Academy (RMA) Sandhurst who won bronze.
In the Junior competition, it was Craig Bateman, also from the RMA Sandhurst that scooped gold, while Andy Bastyan from MET office Exeter came away with the silver and Joel Rai from DACI Shrivenham the bronze.
This year’s competition saw the introduction of the Compass Apprentice Chef of the Year, welcoming eight of Compass’ newest talents to the competition theatre. These budding chefs were tasked with creating a fish dish in just 40 minutes, resulting in another win for the RMA Sandhurst with Jackie Kent securing top prize for her dish of Dover sole. Eleanor De Maria from Chelsea FC and Ruairidh Summers from UCL London were awarded special commendations.
Fiercely contested across Compass
Nick Vadis, UK Executive Chef, Compass Group UK & Ireland said: “This competition is fiercely contested by chef teams across our business and really showcases the amazing culinary talent that we have at Compass. The quality of the food produced by both our junior and senior chefs was outstanding; these chefs are a real credit to our business and I’m sure many of the junior chefs we saw today will be our senior chefs of tomorrow.
“This year we also launched an award for Apprentice Chef of the Year. Competing in this arena was an extremely daunting task for our apprentices but they rose to the challenge and I’m immensely proud of them, and all the chefs that took part.”
Know Your Food
The Know Your Food award also returned to the stage for 2013, following its launch at last year’s competition, and yet again saw chefs demonstrate their ability to create amazing food that reflects Compass’ commitments to health, wellbeing and sustainable sourcing.
In the Senior competition Alastair Gow from Edinburgh Castle took home the coveted Know Your Food award, and in the Junior competition it was Jordan Fordyce from Total Oil Aberdeen. Both chefs displayed an amazing understanding of the provenance of their ingredients and demonstrated the importance of producing a balanced meal.
Off to Dubai…
As part of their prize, the Junior and Senior Chef of the Year award winners will now travel to Dubai. Here they will team up with the United Arab Emirates Compass Chef of the Year winner to recreate some of their dishes in a celebration dinner for 40 compass clients in the CAMEAT Business at the Jumeirah Emirates Culinary Academy. Joining this year’s cream of the crop will be last year’s winners, Richard Abbott from Met Office Exeter and Amy Duthie from Haileybury College.