Charlton House salon gold winners announced

Matt Simon, Jean-Marc Beaugendre and Erjon Lasku from BDO LLP in Baker Street, London, walked away with gold in the Ready, Steady Cook 'live' cook-off challenge at Charlton House's Salon Culinaire, held on Saturday 10th October at Westminster Kingsway College.

In addition, Simon also took silver in the fine dining category of the competition and Jean-Marc Beaugendre won silver in the Grab'n'Go Salads category

With just 30 minutes to produce a two-course meal for two from a box of mystery ingredients, the BDO LLP team served up the following dishes: Grilled mackerel with tomato and ginger chutney with ceviche of mackerel with carrots and citrus slaw and fillet of rabbit in blackberries and leg of rabbit stuffed in pork and basil with a pumpkin puree.

Matt Simon, hospitality chef at BDO LLP, said: "The dishes are really a reflection of the style of cooking we deliver at BDO LLP every day, both in hospitality and in the staff restaurant: simple and clean in flavours but highly accurate in execution. We always work with seasonal, fresh produce and some of the produce delivered by our near-by farm suppliers is of such an exceptional quality it just makes you happy as a chef. 

"I can't stress enough the team work that went into last Saturday. Both Jean-Marc (chef de partie) and Erjon (chef de partie) are great chefs and can step up to the plate when there is a challenge."

The trio were followed by the silver team from Regents College (Sonny Batch, Jason Thain and Daniel Kwietneiwski) and in joint bronze; Sony United Kingdom Limited (Marcin Dyszkowski, David Hecken and Russell Ednie)the West Midlands team, Andy Langford (Network Rail Mailbox), Simon Mason (Avery Weight Tronix) and Darren Swadling (Hammonds, Birmingham).

Entries into the nine other food categories were said to be outstandingly high this year.

Words: Maria Bracken

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