Westminster's young chefs take Toque d'Or
The team from London's Westminster Kingsway College hopes to follow in the footsteps of Anton Mosimann and Jamie Oliver after being named winner of the 2005 Nestlé Toque d'Or competition.
Anton and Jamie are among the former winners of the prestigious contest for catering students.
Confident that London would be successful in its bid to host the 2012 Olympics, the team from Westminster Kingsway College created its own Twenty 12 restaurant concept as it set out to impress the Toque d'Or judges.
Twenty 12 was one of four different restaurant concepts created by the college teams competing in the finals. The other finalists were The Sheffield College, Carlisle College and Thomas Danby College in Leeds.
The judges, including Brian Turner CBE and Paul Gayler of London's exclusive Lanesborough Hotel, assessed each of the finalists on a range of criteria including their culinary and front of house skills, business acumen, ability to work as a team and their creativity and imagination.
Bob Brown, lecturer at Westminster Kingsway College, said: "We are over the moon. Like London itself, we knew Twenty 12 had the potential to be a winner and thanks to the hard work, talent and dedication of the students we beat off stiff competition to take this coveted prize. "There is no doubt that the Nestlé Toque d'Or is the most prestigious - not to mention the most challenging - competition out there for catering students. The team and I are absolutely overwhelmed by our success."
Grand Final chair of the judges Paul Gayler said: "Twenty 12 was a fantastic restaurant concept and we were delighted that the team were able to do it justice - their menu was inspired and they excelled in every aspect of running their own restaurant.
"I am confident that every member of the Westminster Kingsway team will go on to have a successful career in catering. The standard at this year's finals was higher than ever which certainly bodes well for the future of our industry." The winning menu started with nettle soup with creamed duchesse potato and smoked eel beignet; and was followed by a main course of roast cutlet of Welsh lamb, confit rolled breast of lamb with burst cherry tomatoes, caramelised fennel and parsley vinaigrette.
Dessert consisted of warm coffee and date pudding, and traditional Irish coffee with white chocolate and mandarin ice-cream; all representative of modern British cuisine.
As well as picking up £4000 worth of catering equipment for their college courtesy of Electrolux Foodservice Equipment & Nestlé Toque d'Or, the Westminster Kingsway College team can now look forward to taking part in the prestigious Toque d'Or study trip as part of their prize for winning the competition.
The winning team kicked off their experience in London, working with the capital's leading chefs and maître d'hôtels.
They will then head off to Charlotte, North Carolina to the Johnson and Wales University, where they will have the opportunity to visit some of the USA's finest restaurants and meet America's leading chefs.
