Sommelier Laurent Richet and chef de partie Neil Cooper from Hotel TerraVina in Hampshire have been announced as the winners of the Academy of Food & Wine’s 2010 Gastronomy Team of the Year after an exciting ‘cook & serve’ final at London’s Westminster Kingsway College yesterday.
Assistant sommelier Clement Robert and executive chef Steven Titman from Summer Lodge, Dorset, were runners-up in the competition, held in association with Discover the Origin.
“This year the finalists were all of an extremely high standard which gave the judges a tough time deciding on an eventual winner. The Gastronomy Team of the Year competition is going from strength to strength and demonstrates that good teamwork between front-of-house and back-of-house can result in some very creative cooking and wine and food pairings,” commented Academy of Food & Wine deputy chairman Paul Breach.
Judge Rob Kirby, chef director of Lexington Catering, said: “The team from Hotel TerraVina demonstrated a thorough understanding of food and wine matching – they understood what worked and showed true cooking skills together with wines that complemented rather than dominated the food. These were well thought out, well executed dishes.”
The finalists in the competition were asked to cook and serve a two-course meal with wines. Dishes had to include Discover the Origin PDO ingredients Parma Ham and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and be accompanied by a Burgundy, Port or wine from the Douro Valley, also part of the Discover the Origin campaign.
Laurent and Neil’s winning two-course meal included a starter of hand-dived scallops, cauliflower, quail eggs, Parmesan, Parma ham and white chocolate, accompanied by a Niepoort, Redoma Branco, Douro Portugal 2007. The team’s main course was pig trotter spring roll, confit belly and poached loin of pork, smoked potato, Parmesan, Parma ham and chorizo foam and celeriac fondant served with Nuits Saint-Georges, Michel Gros Burgundy, France 2004.
As part of the team’s prize Hotel TerraVina receives an Academy training bursary, along with their personal prize of a 10-day trip to France, Portugal and Italy. The runner-up’s establishment will receive an Academy training bursary.
The Academy also announced that the winner of its student competition, Future Stars of Gastronomy, was student sommelier James O’Keeffe and student chef Jack Hone from Westminster Kingsway College, London.
Joint runners-up in the competition, which was open to chef and front-of-house students from any college or university, were student sommelier Adam Finney and student chef Enming Liang from University College of Birmingham and student sommelier Gareth Pugh and student chef Tom Allerton from Thames Valley University.
The winning college receives an Academy of Food & Wine training bursary together with the winning team’s personal prize of a 10-day trip, courtesy of Discover the Origin, to gain an insight and understanding into the history and provenance behind the products of the PDO campaign. The runner-up colleges will each receive an Academy training bursary.
The Gastronomy Team of the Year and Future Stars of Gastronomy competitions, now in their second year, are designed to highlight the importance of a good working relationship between kitchen and front-of-house staff and to encourage teamwork and innovation between the disciplines.
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