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Young Chef of the Year Competition

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Background

In line with the last 10 years of the local competition, plans for this year’s competition were developed in September, starting with discussions with Banbury & Bicester Campus of Active Learning Colleges regarding the hire of the kitchens and restaurant as a venue. Once the venue and date for use of the College for the Banbury heat cooking final were agreed all the secondary schools in the Banbury area were approached with full details of the competition asking for the appropriate staff members to encourage their students to take part and we were on the way!

Most of the schools expressed interest back in September and have taken part in the past but of course each year there is no certainty they will support the event again! As ever we await applications to see whether there is sufficient interest for the competition to take place.

Applications

The first stage of making an application with written details of their menus is required by the closing date – Friday 14th December.

Applicants are asked to cook two three-course meals in a two-hour period. On receipt of an adequate number of applications the normal paper assessment of applications will take place to select the most promising candidates with healthy menus. The eight finalists for the big day are then selected.

At last there will be certainty and we will carry on making the remainder of the arrangements for the final scheduled for Tuesday 8th January 2019.

The Main Event

After 2 hours of time-pressured cooking by the finalists the 3 experienced judges who have agreed to take part will then select a winner and runner-up. The evening will be concluded by the presentation of certificates for each Finalist and the trophies for the winner and runner up by the Town Mayor.

These two successful students are invited to take part in the next round of the overall National competition that takes place in Newbury on Saturday 19th January 2019.

The top three placed finalist in the National Competition will receive major trophies.

Full details of the competition and arrangements are available from Rotarian Bernard Goodchild youngchef@banburyrotaryclub.org.uk