Young Highland Chef 2012 opens for applications

Chefs from the Highlands and Islands are being served up the chance of a lifetime in a region-wide culinary competition to find the best young cook. Albert Roux OBE, one of the world’s best known master chefs and a guru of high cuisine, is offering a week of work experience at his family’s two Michelin star Le Gavroche restaurant in London.

Entries are being invited for Young Highland Chef 2012. The annual competition is organised by North Highland College UHI’s Burghfield training hotel and the Albert Roux Consultancy. Applicants must submit a three-course dinner menu for two people which contains salmon in the starter, game in the main course and apple in the sweet, with a budget cost of £15 per cover.

The menus will be judged on paper before eight successful applicants are selected to attend the final on Monday 29 of October. The winner will receive £500 plus a week’s work experience at Le Gavroche, while prizes of £250 plus a week’s work experience at The RAC Club in London and £100 will be awarded for second and third. All finalists will receive a certificate and small trophy.

The finals, which will be held at Burghfield House in Dornoch, will be judged by Mr Roux with support from top chefs including Glen Watson, Andrew Fairlie, Steven Docherty, Brian Maule, Derek Johnstone and Philip Corrick. Last year’s winner, Euan Walker from the New Drumossie Hotel, Inverness, will also be on the panel.

Mr Roux said: “We are so excited about this year’s Highland Chef competition, which for the first time is held in association with Caterer and Hotelkeeper Magazine. At the Roux Consultancy we are committed to educating youngsters and taking an active involvement in the development of our chefs of the future. This competition provides budding professionals with a chance of a lifetime. The standard of entries gets higher every year and I look forward to working closely with the judges to find our next chef extraordinare.”

Burghfield House is run as a training hotel by North Highland College UHI, part of the University of the Highlands and Islands. It offers a range of courses in hospitality and cookery, including a tourism and hospitality honours degree. Students can also gain Scottish vocational and higher national qualifications.

Russell Rekhy, Burghfield campus manager, said: “We are delighted to be involved in this year’s competition. It will give us the opportunity to showcase some of the marvellous talent in our region and our training hotel which is serving one of the region’s key industries. We expect the chance to work at Le Gavroche will be an irresistible draw for our region’s young chefs.”

Young Highland Chef 2012 is held in association with Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine and sponsored by the North Highland Initiative. The closing date for applications is Friday 29 June.

Media contact

Susan Szymborski
Communications officer
01463 279222
susan.szymborski@uhi.ac.uk