Team UK places fifth at 2025 Bocuse d’Or world final

Team UK has placed fifth after competing against 23 other teams from around the world at the Bocuse d’Or 2025 world final in Lyon.

 

Tom Phillips, executive chef at the two-Michelin-starred Restaurant Story in London, represented Team UK alongside commis chef Harry van Lierop from the Ledbury, president Clare Smyth and coach Ian Musgrave from the Ritz London, who competed as a candidate in 2023.

 

Phillips took his first stab at the Bocuse d’Or in 2019, when Team UK placed 10th in the world final. He returned in 2023 as team coach, which saw the UK come seventh.

 

The chef secured his place in the 2025 world final after coming fourth in the European heats in Trondheim, Norway, in March 2024.

 

He missed out on a podium position against Sebastian Holberg Svendsgaard of Denmark, Sweden’s Gustav Leonhardt and Håvard Werkland from Norway, but still won a prize for Best Theme on a Plate.

 

At the 20th edition of the grand final held between Sunday and Monday (26 and 27 January), Team UK were tasked with completing two signature challenges in 5 hours 30 minutes.

 

These involved paying tribute to the competition’s late founder, chef Paul Bocuse, for the platter, and celebrating the “unique harmony” between celery (both stalk and root), stone bass, and lobster, for the plated dish, which had to be portioned and presented on 16 plates.

 

Team UK were the first to cook in this year’s world final and started things off with the ‘Coast to Coast’ plated dish, which was inspired by the bountiful shores of Britain.

 

 

It consisted of stone bass highlighted with Brittany lobster poached in an aromatic brown butter flavoured with spice of angels and lemon thyme, served with a celeriac en croute, a celeriac baked in Maldon salt from the River Blackwater in Essex, England, encased in a shortcrust pastry filled with a sweet chestnut stuffing.

 

The dish was accompanied with celery branch, English walnut and fresh horseradish “salad”, celeriac cream with a Cornish seaweed pearl condiment and sauces of lobster sabayon, aerated with Clarence court, Burford brown hens eggs and “Fen Farm” butter sauce infused with kelp and finished Dulse from the Welsh coast.

 

For the second challenge, Team UK presented ‘A Walk in the woods - The revival of Britain’s woodlands and orchards’, also known as ‘The Forest’. This had to feature French venison, foie gras and a tea-infused consommé. 

 

 

The chefs sought to bring out the nuanced flavours of the roe deer through its fusion of classical and modern techniques, as well as its selective use of artisanal products from across the British Isles.

 

The team’s national tribute garnish, the orchard pear drop, made from baked late season red Williams pears, preserved English cherry and woodland berries, was presented alongside the Top Table Pie, a crisp short crust pastry filled with foie gras, venison shoulder, macerated prunes and wild mushrooms from the New Forest.

 

Meanwhile, the consommé tea consisted of warming roe deer consommé infused with ‘artisan Souchong’ tea, garnished with a ravioli filled with sweet chestnut, British grown root vegetables, garden thyme and chive buds.

 

The highlight was the roast saddle roe deer with venison blood pudding brushed in a traditional ‘Pontak’ glaze, finished over smouldering wild Scottish juniper paired to venison loins wrapped in soft aromatic herbs, dressed in a morel mushroom and Madeira blanquette sauce.

 

 

Speaking to The Caterer straight after the ceremony, Smyth, who has been president of Bocuse d’Or since 2023, said: “Our team just keeps getting better and better. We’re getting stronger and stronger every time and I think to come fifth in the world is something to be incredibly proud of. When you see the top teams, it’s an incredible difference in terms of what they have – the kit, the investment, the UK [needing to] get behind our team more as a country. We should be proud of these guys. We can cook in Britain.”

 

Phillips and his commis, van Lierop, who Smyth described as someone who has “really made it – seeing this youngster grow into a confident young chef”, also achieved one of the highest kitchen scores and demonstrated steely perseverance, having kept their cool despite their mixer failing to work for the first 45 minutes of the competition.

 

“If you think about this as a Formula 1 where every single second counts, and his mixer just wasn’t working at the beginning… Luckily for our team, we were able to jump on it and one of our team members was able to source another one pretty quickly. To have something like that throw you out and for them to hold their nerve the way they did and deliver – what they did was brilliant,” Smyth added.

 

This year also marked Andreas Antona’s last world final as chair of the Bocuse d’Or UK Academy, which he established in the Houses of Parliament in 2017 with the support of UKHospitality.

 

He told The Caterer: “If you’re the candidate and are single-minded, determined and ambitious and are able to keep calm and stay focussed on the task in hand, you can launch your career onto an international stage, like the previous gold candidates such as: Rasmussen Kofoed, Yannick Alléno, Régis Marcon who have all gone on to enjoy illustrious careers.

 

“The trends that we see at Bocuse d’Or we will see on restaurant plates years later. It’s a fantastic showcase for craftsmanship, culinary skills and creativity - based on the principles of classical cooking.”

 

France was crowned champions of the competition, with candidate Paul Marcon winning thirty years after his father Régis Marcon. Denmark took the second prize and Sweden the bronze award.

 

The UK has yet to reach the podium of the Bocuse d’Or; the closest it came was in 2013 when Adam Bennett and Kristian Curtis reached fourth place.

 

Legendary French chef Paul Bocuse, who died in 2018, launched the global culinary competition in 1987, which takes place every two years.

 

Photography: Christophe Pouget and Jodi Hinds Photography