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Hungry for more?
Awards and competitions can bring rich rewards and open important
doors to chefs sharp enough to win them. But how do you increase
your chances of victory?
Little wonder then that chef’s competitions are thriving.
From head-to-head battle, such as National Chef of the Year, and
new talent searches like the Roux and Ramsay scholarships, to the
team events like Restaurant magazine’s own College Restaurant
of the Year, there’s a competition out there to suit every
student or professional chef, whatever their abilities or aspirations.
The Question is: do you have the cojones? “I went in there
strong, hard and fast” says Sat Bains, of his 1999 Roux scholarship
victory, making it sound more like an SAS operation than a classical
French cookery competition. Similarly, Eyck Zimmer – who has
won the Knorr National Chef of the Year and the Master of Culinary
Arts – reckons that only certain, steely chefs can handle
competitions like National Chef, in which they’re asked to
create dishes against the clock from mystery ingredients. “It’s
so hyped up I wouldn’t describe it as ‘fun’. There
are some bigwig chefs out there who just aren’t competition
chefs, because they can’t perform under that pressure: being
judged, having top chefs watching over our shoulder. They cramp
up.”
When Zimmer first got into competitions, he had a point to prove.
Namely the chefs working in contract catering, as he was at the
time, were often just as gifted, individually, as their more glamorous
restaurant rivals. To thrive in a competition environment, away
from your team, your kitchen and your own ingredients, you have
to have a “natural talent and understanding of flavours”.
Down on the relative nursery slopes of the Roux and Ramsay scholarships,
competitions are a useful way for young chefs to announce themselves
into the industry. The Roux, in particular, is not just a prestigious
bump to any CV (Sat Bains was 28 and unemployed when he won it),
but it opens up membership of an elite club. For instance, Roux
scholars get together for trips to Tuscany or Dubai. “It’s
like joining the family,” says co-ordinator Alison Jee. “Scholars
know they can contact the Rouxs at any stage and ask for guidance.”
But how do you win? Contrary to official advice, Bains didn’t
practice his Roux dish. “I’m not good at doing something
over and over. You’ve got to feel it. It’s off-the-cuff
cuisine.”
Zimmer, meanwhile, who has also completed at the international Bocuse
d’Or in Lyon, thinks competitive cooking is a specific skill
that takes dedicated practice to master. “You have to be very
lucky or exceptionally talented to win first time.” His advice
is to get the judges’ feedback, keep it simple, concentrate
on purity of taste, good flavour combinations, consistency and to
keep cool. “There will be moments when something goes wrong,
but just like a kitchen in everyday life, it’s how you solve
the situation.”
Remember, also, that no competition is a substitute for hard graft.
As Bains puts it, “The Roux scholarship shows you to a door,
but it’s up to you to kick that door down.”
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