Elior Culinary Team named Best of the Best at La Parade

The Elior Culinary Team team has been named Best of the Best in the La Parade des Chefs competition at the Hospitality Show 2013.

The live restaurant competition, which took place at the exhibition at the NEC Birmingham this week and concluded today, saw three culinary teams battling out for the title.

Over the past three days, brigades from Elior, the House of Commons and Compass Group took part in the competition which catered for 100 covers each day. Each team had been selected on the basis of its past La Parade success.

The Elior Culinary Team, which competed yesterday and was awarded a gold medal, comprised Peter Joyner (team manager), Stuart Nisbet (team captain), Robert Neary, Darren Coslett , Inge Boyce, Ben Mansfield, and team porter Danny
Roberts (team pictured below).

They served a three-course menu featuring citrus and dill-cured sea trout with crispy scallop and orange and fennel; a main course of Launceston lamb three-ways with "cabbage and bacon" and thyme-baked beets; and a dessert of banana cheesecake with warm sticky date pudding and salted peanut ice-cream.

Team captain Peter Joyner told Caterer: "We're absolutely delighted. This competition was new to a lot of team members and the camaraderie and team spirit really shone through.

"We served our gold-medal-winning menu from Hotelympia last year and although we didn't change it, bringing on new team members made the experience different for us. The House of Commons and Compass Group are both formidable competition teams, so we are very proud to have taken the title.

"The whole company has got behind the team and supported practice dinners, our graphics team have developed the brochures, our purchasing department have worked with us on suppliers so it really is an award for Elior as a whole."

Earlier today (Wednesday), the Compass team served a three-course menu featuring grilled fillet of red mullet, seafood arancini, piperade, fennel and white bean puree, nantua sauce; a main course of head to toe suckling pig with hazelnuts, cauliflower and carrots; and a dessert of baked chocolate mousse, sea buckthorn, brazil nut sorbet, port-infused clementine.

The team, led by Bob Brown (team captain) and included Rob Dant, Clark Crawley, Jason Trotman, Chris Terry and pastry chef Lauren Barrett, was awarded a silver medal. The House of Commons team, who competed on Monday, also took a silver medal.

All teams were supported front of house by students from University College Birmingham.

Diners paid £32 for a set-price menu, which included a £2 discretionary donation to industry charity Hospitality Action.

Hospitality Salon Culinaire 2013 - Medal Winners >>

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By Amanda Afiya

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