Cooking up success
by Hayley Robinson
Move over Nigella Lawson – there’s a new chef on the block.
Highsted Grammar School pupil Eden Allsworth was crowned the
senior winner of this year’s Kent Young Chef competition.
The 14-year-old was one of four students aged between 14 and 15
from Kent schools to make it through to a two-hour cook-off at The
View Restaurant on the top floor of K College, Tonbridge, last
Friday.
Eden was awarded the title after she impressed the judges with
her duo of pan-roasted belly of pork and line-caught sea bass with
apple wood-smoked mash and a medley of autumn vegetables.
She said: “I’m completely overwhelmed. It’s just incredible.
“Just taking part in the final is an amazing experience and then
to be picked as the winner is indescribable.
“I have a passion for cooking and this is a wonderful step to
working in a professional kitchen one day.”
Four others, aged between 11 and 13, also battled it out for the
chance to win the junior title.
Among those marking the contestants’ dishes was celebrity chef
and Kent restaurateur Richard Phillips.
Benjamin Colley, 12, who attends The Skinners’ School in
Tunbridge Wells, clinched the junior title with his fallow deer
wellington.
The junior runners-up were: Connie Dayman, of Combe Bank School,
Sevenoaks; Amy Monk, of Invicta Grammar School, Maidstone; and
James Thorne, of Ashford School, Ashford.
The senior runners up were: Charlotte O’Connor, of The Knole
Academy, Sevenoaks; Christopher Smith, of Harbour School, Dover;
and Jordan Winter, from the Weald of Kent Grammar School,
Tonbridge.
As well as the winners’ trophies, hampers and certificates, all
the finalists were treated to a buffet lunch after the
cook-off.
All eight finalists will also be treated to lunch at one of
Richard Phillips’ restaurants, while the two winners will devise
the menu for the Kent Young Chef Award Charity Dinner in aid of The
Heart of Kent Hospice.
It will be held on Thursday, January 24, at The Windmill in
Hollingbourne.
30/11/12
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