Budding chefs, mouth-watering ingredients and some healthy competition combine for culinary excellence: add a touch of the virtual world and you have the 2021 edition of the industry’s much-loved competition, International Salon Culinaire.
Taking place from February through to June 2021, International Salon Culinaire will be moving to an alternative hybrid format this year after the postponement of its usual base, Hotel, Restaurant & Catering (HRC) now taking place in 2022, due to uncertainty around the coronavirus pandemic.
Dedicated to providing a platform for the country’s most exciting up and coming chefs, event organiser Montgomery Group wanted to ensure that they are still providing an opportunity for chef’s around the country with varying abilities to develop and showcase their skills this year. This new programme of events will offer a series of online and COVID-19 friendly live competitions, judged by leading chefs in the industry. In addition to the competitions, they will stream a series of masterclasses designed to enhance skill progression and hosted by some previous gold medal winning culinary experts.
Nick Vadis Culinary Director, Compass Group UK & Ireland, says: “After what has been an extremely tough year for our industry it has become clear that having a goal to work towards is imperative to staying positive during challenging times. We jumped at the chance to take part in helping our community rebuild confidence and we are looking forward to shining a light on the plethora of budding talent that may not have been seen this year.”
Along with Compass who are the Principal Partner, many other companies have returned to offer their support, these include the Worshipful Company of Cooks sponsoring the student and apprentice focussed Salon Skills competitions – due to take place simultaneously at multiple colleges across the country and are being run in association with The Craft Guild of Chefs. The Tilda Chef Team of the Year award will be one of the live competitions taking place under COVID-safe conditions in an exclusive London venue and Custom Culinary (Griffiths Foods) are sponsoring the Plant Forward Challenge, a new virtual competition where plant-based ingredients are to be the ‘flavour hero’ of the competitors’ dish.
Steve Munkley, Salon Culinaire Chef Director says: “After the impact of the pandemic on our industry, what better time to organise some live cooking and virtually run competitions, showcasing them on our website and on all our digital channels to lift people’s spirits! The Hospitality industry, but especially chefs are very resilient, so let’s make Salon Culinaire 2021 as special as it was in March 2020 at ExCeL, London.”
A schedule of competitions and the 2021 entry form is available to view now on the brand-new Salon Culinaire website here. www.internationalsalonculinaire.co.uk
