WestKing student wins Best Vegetarian Dish in International Young Chef Olympiad

A Westminster Kingsway College student found the recipe for success to win Best Vegetarian Dish in this year’s International Young Chef Olympiad.

Joe Slater, 18, also came fourth overall in the global competition against students and apprentices from across six continents and 24 time zones.

The competition, in its eighth year, saw participants take a skills test, before a cooking challenge with the top 10 going through to a final cook-off to decide the winner.

The first round involved the making of a vegetarian pasta dish and crème caramel with the chefs making it through to the final round asked to create a chicken dish using mystery ingredients.

The competition was held online for a second year due to the COVID pandemic and was judged by independent professional chefs in the countries being represented.

Joe, who is in the third year of a Professional Chef diploma, said: “It was an honour to be picked to represent England in the Young Chef Olympiad 2022. I did my best and was happy with how my dishes turned out. I couldn’t have done much more.”

“I felt well-prepared, particularly for the first round, because I’d practised that a lot.  I was a bit nervous at first, but I began to settle down once I got going. It was a great experience and made me a better chef.”

Joe, from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, works as a part-time chef at The Chequers Inn in the nearby village of Weston Turville at weekends.

“The competition taught me a lot about time management and being able to precisely prep dishes and make them quickly,” he said.

“It was a good opportunity to push myself further and test myself against other young chefs and see what I could achieve. It looks good on my CV and will really help my career.”

Joe was mentored for the competition by WestKing Chef Lecturer Chris Basten, a formerchair of the Craft Guild of Chefs.

He said: “We are exceptionally proud of Joe. He has worked tirelessly to practise and hone his culinary skills and created fantastic dishes in the competition and rightly got the recognition his hard work and commitment deserves.

“I would like to congratulate Joe on this fantastic achievement. He is a fantastic student who has proved himself to be a skilled and competent chef on the world stage. He is a credit to the college and definitely one to watch out for in the future.”

WestKing is one of the UK’s leading schools for Hospitality and Culinary Arts with an alumni including Jamie Oliver, Ainsley Harriott and Sophie Wright.

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