Craft Guild of Chefs award for Rising Star
BigHospitality’s Rising Star of the month has been awarded the highest accolade at this year’s Craft Guild of Chefs Graduate Awards.
Selin Kiazim, 22, (pictured, right) who graduated from Westminster Kingsway College this summer, won a three-day trip to Paris and culinary tours to Luxembourg and Scotland after achieving the highest grade among the competition’s 12 finalists.
Now in its sixth year, the CGC Graduate Awards require all finalists to complete a series of culinary examinations to test their skills in butchery, fishmongery and cooking.
In this year`s final at Westminster Kingsway College all 12 finalists were asked to prepare French trimmed racks of lamb, lemon sole fillets with a salmon farce and poached sole fillets Flaubert and a rich white and dark chocolate Delice.
Kiazim achieved the highest grade in the exam, securing her the prize, while James Baker from British Airways Waterside and Adam Harrison from Oulton Hall in Leeds were also recognised for being the only other two chefs to pass the exam.
Kiazim, who is now working with Peter Gordon at his restaurant Providores, said the competition was the hardest she had competed in and thanked her mentor and Westminster Kingsway College tutor Vince Cottam for his support throughout the competition.
"The fact that I was competing mostly against chefs who have been in industry for a number of years, whereas I have just come out of college made this an even bigger achievement for me. Credit to Westminster Kingsway college for the fantastic training I gained whilst there," she said.
Steve Love, the Chairman of Judges and Senior Development Chef with McCormicks said: "We saw some great skills and the candidates dug deep to complete all the tasks and get their dishes out on time."
At the awards at the Royal Garden Hotel in London on September 9, Anton Scoones of Oulton Hall, was also given the 2008 Employers Award for Excellence in Training in recognition of his mentoring of finalist Adam Harrison.
All finalists were presented with a personalised chef ’s jacket, one year’s graduate membership of the Craft Guild of Chefs, a bottle of Pommery Champagne and a piece of culinary equipment.
Rising Star: Selin Kiazim
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