News and Features

Wells Young Chef of The Year

Congratulations to Beth Barker of The Blue School, Wells, who has recently been crowned Wells Rotary Club Young Chef of the Year, winning a set of professional kitchen knives. 

The competition challenge was to create a recipe for a meat dish for one person, choosing beef, pork, chicken, lamb or venison from a supplier within 25 miles of Wells and spending no more than £5 on the ingredients (excluding herbs and seasonings). 

Three finalists were took part in a ‘cook-off’ against at the Crown Hotel, Wells.  The result of the cook-off was announced at a Gala Dinner at the Crown Hotel where the winning dish was be cooked by the Head Chef and served to the finalists, their families and members of the Rotary Club of Wells who arranged the competition.

Beth, a pupil in year 10, won first prize for her dish of belly pork with shallot and apple compote served with a Somerset cider sauce.  Beth says “I found the competition a really good experience, very interesting and I learnt a lot.  My recipe, which I designed myself, apart from the sauce, used all local produce.  The pork, which was especially of good quality, came from John Thorner.  I think it helps the local economy to use local produce.”

Andrew Rider, a pupil in Year 7 at Wells Cathedral School also made it through to the Final.  Andrew, aged 12, from Coxley, was the youngest competitor in the competition. He devised a dish consisting of local Somerset chicken with black pepper and sun-dried tomato sauce.  He enjoys cooking a variety of dishes at home and particularly likes using fresh local ingredients. 

The third finalist was Oli Hall, year 10, from The Blue School, who cooked an inventive dish of pork with blackberry jus.  Both runners up were presented with a copper based sauté pan.

Well done to all 3 finalists !

Beth's winning recipe to follow soon