2013 culinary contest launched |13 September 2013

Chefs, sous-chefs and commis Seychellois will be able to test their ability and skills in cooking again in the Seychelles National Culinary Contest, now in its fifth year.
The contest is being organised by the Seychelles Tourism Academy (STA) in collaboration with the ISPC Seychelles.

The contest was launched during a press conference yesterday at the ISPC Seychelles, where STA’s principal Flavien Joubert and ISPC’s chief executive Alfred Fourcroy appealed to all chefs, sous-chefs and commis Seychellois to take part.

Like in other editions, the prizes will be sponsored by Air Seychelles and Cable & Wireless.
Those interested has to bear in mind the criteria that they need to meet to be able to take part in the contest. One must be over 18 years, a professional chef, sous-chef or commis who holds a certificate; they need to be working in hotels, restaurants or take-aways. The contestants must have been working at least six months in their current work place that they will be representing.
 
Those who qualify will be taking part in preliminaries on October 1, 3 and 4 at La Plage Restaurant at Beau Vallon. There, the contestant will have a multiple choice questionnaire of 40 questions they will need to answer, taste and identify 10 ingredients. After the preliminaries the best five of the contestants will have to impress the jurors with their work of art in the final on October 29, 30 and 31 with the recipe based on the ingredients from ISPC Seychelles given by food specialist Christelle Verheyden, who will be also leading the group of jury alongside Lionel Rigolet who will be supporting the contest as in previous editions, as well as the winners in the gala dinner after the competition.

Mr Joubert will also assess the finalist dishes, meeting again his former STA students since most of the contestants have been educated at STA. The names of the two other judges will be announced in the course of next week.

The five finalists will be competing in the three course meal – starter, main course and the dessert contest. In each contest the finalists will receive a list of 60 ingredients called “the basket”. They will conceive their dish exclusively with these ingredients and one main mandatory ingredient. For the starter contest the mandatory ingredient is the epic clams in half shell. For the main course contest, the mandatory ingredient is the Rougie duck fillet. As for the dessert contest is the Boiron apricot puree.

The gala dinner date has not been set yet as the organisers will like to go back to STA as in 2009 but this year in the brand new STA premises. The fund raised from the gala dinner will go entirely to the STA like previous years.  

Mr Joubert said last year’s fund is being used to set up a documentation centre from the year that STA fell under the Seychelles Tourism Board to date.
“We are expecting to update the documentation centre every year,” he added.

Interested contestants can pick up forms from the ISPC Seychelles or request form by email: sncc@ispc.sc . Contestants must bear in mind that completed forms but be handed in by September 30, 2013.