By
AidanBrooks 6 months ago
Recipe Tags:
Christmas Lunch,
Cooking Contests,
Culinary Development,
Culinary Olympics,
Enclume,
Erfurt Germany,
Flagship Restaurant,
Gold Medals,
Gordon Ramsay,
Graduate Awards,
Hospitality Event,
Jean Christophe Novelli,
Last Autumn,
Link Foundation,
Professional Chef,
Professional Hospitality,
Raymond Blanc,
Royal Garden Hotel,
Taste Of Mexico,
Westminster Kingsway College
4
Westminster Kingsway Quality
I’ve never been into competitive cooking. Not because I’m particuarly nervous in a competitive situation or in public - I used to be very successful at youth football and I’ve worked on stage in public alongside Gordon Ramsay, Jean-Christophe Novelli and Raymond Blanc. It’s simply that some people are turned on by cooking contests, while others including me are not. Selin Kiazim is certainly someone who gets a big buzz from culinary competition. The 23-year-old chef was a year below me at Westminster Kingsway College, from where she graduated in 2008 with a Professional Chef Diploma with Distinction.
While still a student at WestKing, Selin won two cooking gold medals at Hotelympia, Britain’s biggest professional hospitality event, and went on to reach the final of Taste of Mexico, before winning the winning the NZ-UK Link Foundation Culinary Competition. The prize was a five-week working trip to New Zealand where, after work experience at Peter Gordon’s Dine in Auckland, Selin secured a job back in London at his flagship restaurant, The Providores and Tapa Room. My opinion of this Marylebone eaterie is well known to regular readers - I spent two of the most formative weeks of my culinary development working there alongside Peter Gordon, a truly brilliant chef for whom I have the utmost respect. Last autumn Selin was voted top achiever at the 2008 Graduate Awards presentation lunch at the Royal Garden Hotel, a month before setting off for the Culinary Olympics in Erfurt Germany as a member of the multi-medal winning British junior team. |
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The other week Selin was in front of the cameras once again, this time reaching the semifinals of BBC Young Chef of the Year. No disgrace coming third behind chefs with years of experience at two of the country’s most talked-about restaurants - Fergus Henderson’s St. John which I hugely enjoyed back in 2007 and Simon Rogan’s L’Enclume, where I have a family reservation for post-Christmas lunch next Sunday. With such drive and passion, Selin is bound to make a great career for herself. I can only wish her the very best and congratulate WestKing on yet another quality graduate. |
Posted by Trig - a 22-year-old from London’s East End, currently developing a career as a chef in Spain.
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