Princethorpe’s FutureChefs Showcase Their Culinary Skills

The school’s first-round heats took place after school on Tuesday 10 and Thursday 12 October with 17 contestants tasked with cooking and serving up a main meal in just one hour.

The FutureChef competition challenges young people aged 12 to 16 to cook their way through a series of rounds, gaining experience, meeting professionals and developing their skills, all while getting an insight into the culinary industry.

All of our would-be chefs really wowed the judges, Jacqui Scott, Grove du Toit, Michael Spencer, Gil Cowlishaw, Tom Walton and former FutureChef regional finalist Upper Sixth Former, Chloe O’Carroll-Bailey, with their culinary creations. From the off, they worked quickly, demonstrating technical skills such as knife work and pasta making and the finished plates of food looked tantalising and were full of flavour. What's more the contestants’ attention to detail was superb with plates polished, the food presented artistically and their work surfaces scrubbed clean.

It was a hard decision to choose between them all and the judges deliberated carefully as they argued the pros and cons of first one dish and then another. In the end they decided that Year 10s Sophie Henry and Finlay Ross had managed to hold their nerve and execute their dishes superbly to finish in first and second place and qualify for the next round of the competition.

Taking the year group titles were Year 7, Emily Divers, Year 8, Sophia Deery and Year 9, Emily Knight.

Commenting on this first stage of the competition, Teacher of Food Technology, Jacqui Scott said, “There was so much enthusiasm, teamwork and skill shown. Pupils cooked food to be proud of in a very short period of time. I have been really impressed with the level of interest in the FutureChef competition. It was really very difficult to pick our winners and the judges thoroughly enjoyed every mouthful we tried. I’m very excited to see how far we can go in the competition.”

Huge congratulations to our two worthy winners and well done to all of the participants who took part, it was an excellent effort all-round, and you all produced fabulous plates of food.