Whitlock went head to head with five other students from the college in a bid to create and cook the best non-oriental dish using Kikkoman soy sauce.
He came out on top with his ‘squid ink and soy risotto, Szechuan squid’ closely followed by Nathan Gayle and his ‘soy chocolate fondant with a Seville orange sauce with candied orange zest, mini sorbet and a soy caramel shard’.
Daniel Draper picked up third place with his dish of ‘soy chargrilled sous-vide chateaubriand served with a broccoli puree, pickled mushrooms, dauphine potatoes, grilled king oyster mushroom and a sweet soy jus-gras’.
The judging panel consisted of Simon Hulstone, award winning head chef of The Elephant, Torquay and Bing-yu Lee, Manager, UK of Kikkoman.
The judges were looking for the winning dish to impress on taste, presentation, skills, mis en place and also its creative use of Kikkoman soy sauce.
Bing-yu Lee of Kikkoman UK said: “We were delighted with the standard of dishes that the students at Westminster Kingsway entered and look forward to rolling this competition out to other colleges in the UK.”
Not only has Whitlock been crowned Kikkoman’s student chef of the year, he also won £250 of equipment vouchers and a fantastic opportunity to have a week’s work experience cooking alongside Simon Hulstone at The Elephant Restaurant, Torquay.