Benjamin Champkin of The Elephant in Torquay has been named as the Chefs’ Young National Chef of the Year at the Restaurant Show.
Ben was one of just eight young chefs in the UK to reach the final at today’s show at London’s Earls Court.
On winning the award, Ben told The Staff Canteen: “All the hard work has paid off. It’s the busiest time of the year at The Elephant and I had to come in on my days off at six in the morning. It just shows if you put the work in it does pay off.”
Impressing a judging panel including Mark Sargeant, proprietor of Rocksalt in Folkestone and Gordon Ramsay’s former right hand man, Ben took the honour with his starter of fallow deer, burnt onion, picked apple and beets with roasted grapes.
For his main course Ben served rack of turbot, parsnip, lardo iberico, fennel pollen, crisp sweetbreads, golden sultanas and verjus butter sauce.
To finish Ben presented cherry bakewell, cherry vinegar, yoghurt and wood sorrel.
Coming in behind Ben were runners-up Ruth Hansom from The Ritz and Daniel Akrigg of Rogan & Company.
Mark Sargeant, who was invited to become the competition’s first ambassador to inspire the next generation of ‘ones to watch’ and is himself a past winner of the Craft Guild of Chefs’ National Chef of the Year, said: “Ben demonstrated that
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