Entries to the salon at the Bedford Food & Wine Festival more than doubled this year, making it England's largest regional competitive event for chefs following the absence of the Heart of England Salon Culinaire at Hospitality Week this year.
"We were overwhelmed with entries and we didn't want to disappoint people so we put on extra classes," said organiser Raj Mandal, head of hospitality and catering at Bedford College, where the fourth biennial event took place two weeks ago. "It started as a place to give people, especially juniors, a chance to show their skills and has grown from there. And with the demise of the salon at Birmingham this year, we invested more in it."
More than 300 professional and trainee chefs took part in over 30 individual and team live cooking competitions, with additional classes for children and amateur cooks. More than 40 classes made up the display section of the competition and judging was carried out by members of the Craft Guild of Chefs.
Held for the first time at this year's event was La Parade des Chefs, in which junior and senior teams cooked a three-course meal for 50 covers in the college's Skyline restaurant. The team from Sheffield College emerged triumphant from the junior parade to take a silver medal and the Craft Guild of Chefs Trophy, while the winner of the senior competition with a gold medal was the Combined Services Culinary Team. Eurest Defence Services took a gold medal and the trophy for the buffet event.
In the live theatre, the Best Overall Senior competitor was Colin Johnstone, group executive chef for Eurest, while John Fishwick of Liverpool College was named Best Overall Junior competitor. Adam Hall of the De Vere Belfry hotel in Warwickshire, and Julie Bristow of Brooklands College were judged Best Junior and Senior respectively in the display event.
* The tables were turned on Craft Guild judges Christopher Basten and Bernie Engelhardt when they took part in a Ready, Steady, Cook-style Judge the Judge class. Assisted by "commis chefs" Simon Green and Nick Vadis, they had 30 minutes to prepare a starter and main course from ingredients provided by the audience.