posted 28th July 2015
Chef Keith Mitchell, our Executive Head Chef here at the Grand has been involved with the Eastbourne Young Chefs Competition for over 20 years now, so has seen plenty of young culinary talent along the way. He is most proud to be Chairman of the Judges....
This competition is organised each year by Eastbourne Education Business Partnership in conjunction with the Grand and offers the opportunity for all Eastbourne Senior Schools to take part.
This year competition was fierce as ever with teams being put forward from Ratton, Bedes, Eastbourne Academy, Willingdon, Bishop Bell and Cavendish School. Finalists were chosen from the school heats and so the final cook off commenced! The theme for 2015 was 'European' and each finalist had 90 minutes in which to prepare their main dish for the judging.
Some of the competition detail included what was expected to be in the dish, no dish to cost more than £4.00 and brief written description... all very serious stuff! Mentor chefs from Sussex Downs College, The View Hotel, Langham Hotel, Chalk Farm, The Wingrove and Jason Fassbender were on hand during the school heats sessions for advice.
Assisting Keith with the judging was Jason Paterson from Clean Plates, representing the Eastbourne Hospitality Association and Mark Fagan, consultant respresenting the Institute of Hospitality; both organisations were sponsors of the event too. Tesco Stores very kindly donated special prizes for the two category winners.
And so to the overall winners, Keith did say how incredibly difficult it was to choose and what a high standard again this year was presented. But as with any competitions there have to be winners.... Eleora from Cavendish (Years 7/8) and Jupiter from Bishop Bell (Years 9/10) triumphed and both received the winners cup, various prizes and a lunch at the Grand Hotel. All the other finalists received a certificate and prizes in recognition of their acheivement.
As Chef Mitchell said, 'the standard of entries and cooking is outstanding, especially bearing in mind the age of the cooks'. It is a great sign of things to come for the Hotels and Catering Industry as a whole. Hopefully this taster will encourage more to look at this path as a career later in life.
Preparation for 2016 is well underway apparently!........