Young National Chef of the Year 2013 finalists announced

The Craft Guild of Chefs has announced the finalists of this year's Young National Chef of the Year competition.

Now in its fourth year, the competition is open to 18 to 23-year-old chefs from any sector of the industry, including hotels, restaurants, pubs and contract catering, and complements the main National Chef of the Year contest.

This year saw a change in format, which means that the Guild picked just four chefs to automatically go through to the grand final, while the remaining four places were fought for in a series of semi-finals by winners made up of young chefs from industry wide competitions.

Young National Chef of the Year is run in partnership with Knorr and in association with Lockhart Catering Equipment and Churchill, and the final cook-off will take place at the Restaurant Show on 8 October.

The Young National Chef of the Year 2013 finalists are:

Rory Welch, Broad Chard Pub, Newcastle
Danny Hoang, Viajante, London
David Alexander Squire, Danesfield House, Marlow
Ruth Hansom, Boundary Restaurant, London
Ben Champkin, the Elephant restaurant, Torquay
Louisa May Matthews, Eton College, Sodexo
Daniel Akrigg, Rogan & Company
Academy of Culinary Arts, to be confirmed

The remaining position for the final of YNCOTY will be announced at the Academy of Culinary Arts dinner on 15th July.