A heat in the south took place at Brooklands College on Friday 14th June whilst a northern heat was held at Sheffield College on Tuesday 18th June. Chefs could enter the exams in kitchen or pastry with an ambition of achieving the pass mark needed to cook at the final exam which will take place at the University of West London on Wednesday 4th September 2024.
For the kitchen tasks, the chefs completed a multiple-choice examination with questions relating to both classical and modern cookery. In the fishmongery test the chefs had to prepare one whole trout and for the butchery challenge they had to prepare a whole chump of lamb on the bone into two rumps.
Chefs then had to create an amuse bouche or appetiser using two puff pastry vol au vent cases followed by a trout starter using the fillets they prepared in the fish task. A mystery basket task included the lamb and a selection of ingredients selected by chair of judges Ben Murphy. With a final opportunity to impress the examiners, the chefs had to create a lemon meringue tart following a given recipe.
The 11 chefs going through to the kitchen final are:
- Rohin Geddes, The Royal Garden Hotel
- Joel Barton, CORD by Le Cordon Bleu
- Kai-le Tran, Royal Airforce Club
- Nick Grant, Launceston Place
- Inez Elfriede Roggema, Trivet
- Angelo Vinci, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons
- Paolo Marinosci, Mauro Colagreco at Raffles London at The OWO
- Ross Boyd, Amuse by Kenny Dagleish
- Callum O'Grady, House of Commons
- Ciaran Ryan, The Dog at Wingham
- Alessio Sneider, Soho House 76 Dean Street
In the pastry exam, the chefs had four hours to create 12 pieces of fudge, serve up a combination of soaked and unsoaked savarins as well as follow a recipe for a pear and almond tart. This exam also included a multiple-choice paper testing the candidates on their classical pastry knowledge.
The eight chefs have been selected to go through to the final pastry exam are:
- Catherine Ens, Launceston Place
- Jessica McKechnie, Cameron House
- Jessica May Erskine, House of Commons
- Deimante Duobaite, The Silver Birch
- Christi Myburgh, Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park Corner
- Ridhima Mhaiskar, The Dorchester
- Irene Magro, Rosewood London
- Krishna Rajesh, Royal Air Force Club
Next month these finalists will be heading on a two-day culinary tour where they will learn more about the tests for the exam as well as visiting Daylesford Organics, Cotswold’s Gold Oil, Little Oak Vineyard and North Cotswold’s Brewery.