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About the Scholar
On returning from the NEC where we held The Gordon Ramsay Scholar Award 2008, I’m delighted to say, in the space of 8 short years, the event has continued to grow beyond my wildest expectations and must surely now be considered the premier competition for young chefs in the industry.
The BBC Good Food provided a great stage for the competition with over 150,000 visitors having the chance to see 40 budding young chefs do battle over the course of 4 days of competition. As always the standard of competition never ceases to amaze me with a huge array of talent on show which always demonstrates to me that the future of our industry is in very safe hands.
As usual The Gordon Ramsay College Scholar produced an extremely worthy winner with Tony Bee of Blackpool and Fylde College triumphing. Tony shone through in a very high standard competition for the more inexperienced chefs and is another excellent advertisement for his College.
The Gordon Ramsay Scholar final featured 7 professional chefs and The College Scholar winner who were set the challenge of producing a 3 course menu. Stephen Hope of The Merchant Hotel in Belfast was crowned The Gordon Ramsay Scholar 2008 in a very tight contest with Daniel Birk of Rudding Park Hotel runner up. Stephen took away a host of fabulous prizes and can look forward to me and my team mentoring him over the course of 2009.
As always none of this would be possible without the generous and valuable support of our partners, especially Gordon’s Gin. The Gordon Ramsay Scholar Award would not be the success that it has become today without the support of those most important to the award – you the entrants. I am grateful to the colleges for their unstinting support in grooming the next generation of talent and encouraging them to enter the award. I am also grateful to so many already within the industry who see the benefits that an event like this can give a young cook in terms of confidence and contacts. Please don’t stop supporting us.
I very much look forward to more exciting years to come. For regular updates on The Gordon Ramsay Scholar Award 2009 please forward your details to ramsayscholar@gordonramsay.com
