Hospital chefs strike gold in world-famous cooking competition

Two Portsmouth hospital chefs have scooped gold medals in one of the most prestigious cooking competitions in the world.

Jim Richardson and Joe Hennigan received the top accolade at the famous International Salon Culinaire, part of the Hotel, Restaurant and Catering (HRC) 2023 event in London.

ISC is regarded as one of the world’s top competitions for chefs of all ages and abilities – from students through to those well established in their careers. The platform helped launch the careers of Gordon Ramsey and Anthony Worrall-Thompson among others.

Jim and Joe, usually based in the kitchens at St Mary’s Community Health Campus, had already had a taste of glory after coming third in NHS Chef 2022.

Today they were one of seven teams battling it out in the NHS Four Nations Chef Challenge.

Each pair had one hour to prepare a three-course nutritionally balanced meal suitable for hospital patients.

The meal had to include one plant based course and the main had to be served hot. All needed to be provided on a budget of £6 per head.

As well as testing their cooking skills, the competition was designed to challenge the chefs’ catering knowledge and menu engineering.

Jim and Joe prepared their now infamous butternut squash, chilli and lime soup as their starter; the dish that won them best vegetarian entry at NHS Chef 2022 and propelled them into the finals.

Meanwhile the main course they chose to showcase was Bang Bang Cauliflower before finishing with a refreshing lemon mousse for dessert.

The duo faced fierce competition from other NHS teams from Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. Wales was invited to take part but did not end up submitting an entry.

Iain Robertson, Catering Operations Manager at Solent NHS Trust, who has himself competed in the ISC as an NHS chef, said: “We are absolutely delighted and extremely proud that the lads came away with a gold medal.

“Competition was tough with exceptionally high standards on the day but yet again they smashed it.”

The teams competed in live theatre kitchens kitted out with state-of-the-art cooking equipment. The 60-minute challenge was just one of more than 100 different classes taking place over three days.