The National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR) has announced Red Dish Chronicles Culinary School as the overall winner of its recently held five-day marathon cooking competition.
Alhaji Nura Kangiwa, NIHOTOUR’s Director-General, disclosed this in a statement on Thursday in Lagos.
Kangiwa said that Masterminds Catering and Culinary School emerged first runner-up while Chefs Academy was second runner-up.
He said the cooking competition was held to herald NIHOTOUR’s forthcoming Gastronomy Festival, slated to hold from June 16 to June 17, in Abuja.
“These top three winners will be given some mouth-watering prizes during the gala night of the gastronomy festival at International Conference Centre Abuja on the 17th of June.
“Their prizes include large-scale kitchen equipment, paid foreign trips and fully funded culinary development training courses, among others,” he said.
According to him, nine Abuja-based culinary schools participated in the cooking competition.
He noted that each culinary school was represented by two student chefs who displayed their culinary skills in diverse gastronomic areas such as table d’hote menu, misen-place, knife handling skills, preparation, production, and presentation.
He said the competition’s technical planning committee ensured that only bonafide students of the participating culinary schools were allowed to compete and not their instructors or technicians.
“They also ensured that the schools have befitting kitchen with necessary equipment, capable of hosting the cooking competition for the contestants because
assessment was carried out in the contestants’ culinary schools.
“Other schools that participated in the competition were: Godmario Centre for Culinary Art; Pristine Culinary and Catering School; Topkraft Culinary Academy; Glory International School and Owande Catering School.
“Among the competition technical planning committee are representatives of NIHOTOUR’s hospitality studies department and representatives of Association of Professional Chefs of Nigeria.
“There are two other experts from hospitality private sectors, who served as the Panel of Judges, namely Chef Bitrus Maiwayo and Chef Samirah Ajayi,” he said.