YCO 2017, which has become an international landmark in the hospitality industry, saw a grand opening with participants from 50 countries at Talkatora Stadium in Delhi on 28th Jan, Saturday, followed by the first round.
The second round was held in Bengaluru on 30th Jan and in Pune will be on 31st Jan. A total of 24 countries were in Bangalore which included prestigious schools such as ALMA La Scuola Internazionale Di Cucina Italiana (Italy), University College Birmingham (UK) and Box Hill Institute (Australia). This will continue with the other half of the countries participating in Pune on 31st Jan 2017.
Master Logan Guleff, the 14-year old winner of Masterchef Junior in 2014, was the Celebrity Mascot of YCO 2017.
The theme for round two was “Creativity and Innovation”. The contestants were given 90 minutes to prepare four Main Course portions of a Vegetarian dish produced from a basket of ingredients, along with a mystery ingredient shared with them 24 hours earlier. The chosen recipe could reflect the contestant’s cuisine and culture and had to be appropriate for service in a brasserie or bistro restaurant.
The Judging Panel in Bengaluru featured; Chef Michele Prevedello, Chef Boris Leung Yee Chung, and Chef Andy Verma as Technical Judges, and Chef Shaun Kenworthy, Culinary Director, IIHM
Other noted executive chefs like Chef Vikas Seth (Culinary Director-Embassy Group), Chef Alok Anand (Taj Bangalore), Suresh Hinduja- Founder and CEO- Gourmet India, Chef Selvaraju (Taj Vivanta), Chef Yogen Dutta (ITC Gardenia) and Chef Anirudh Khanna (Shangri-La) were also judges at the event.
Dr. Suborno Bose, Founder & Chief Mentor, Indismart Group & IIHM, said “We conceptualised Young Chef Olympiad as a platform for young chefs-in-training from around the world to interact and showcase their talent. We are very glad to see the great response from the international community, who have come together to make this event such a great success over the past 3 editions. We hope to continue this endeavour in the future and make it bigger!”
Master Logan Guleff, Celebrity Mascot of YCO 2017, and winner of Masterchef Junior 2014, said, “This is my first visit to India and I’m very glad to visit here for Young Chef Olympiad. It has been a great experience thus far! I am very happy to see this beautiful diversity in culture and be here.”
Chef Shaun Kenworthy, Culinary Director, IIHM said, “Inspiring youngsters is something close to our hearts. I think that is where the idea for the competition came from; we want the next generation to wave the culinary flag and take that forward.”
The contestants will continue to Kolkata for the third and final round. The top 10 contestants with the highest scores from the three rounds will move to the final round, where they will cook off for the YCO trophy and a cash prize of $10,000.
