We’ve taken The Staff Canteen Live 2015 to The Hospitality Show at NEC Birmingham and we’ve brought some of the finest names in the industry with us including National Chef of the Year winner Russell Bateman.
Opening the show, Russell entertained the crowd as he cooked a hand dived scallop dish, sharing his own preferred technique for opening the shellfish and how to use a pressure cooker to get maximum flavour out of his dashi.
The head chef at Colette’s said: "It was a great audience today with a real range of ages. I asked the schoolchildren if they had eaten some of the ingredients like celeriac and they said no - so it was interesting for them to get the chance to taste something different.
"I'm not one of those chefs who goes into the restaurant so doing
a show takes that kitchen door away, people can see me and what I'm about."
He added: "I chose the scallop dish because it represents what we do at the restaurant - fresh ingredients which we keep simple and treat with respect."
Benoit provided The Staff Canteen finale, making a citrus dish which he described as a 'lemon tart, broken down and a little bit of fun added to it to jazz it up.' "It's always nice to share a bit of our knowledge," he explained. "The main reason I wanted to come today was to inspire the next generation. It's an opportunity to show different aspects of our work and it's great fun to see peoples reactions when they taste the finished dish."
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He added: "There are so many little techniques to go through in just 20 minutes so there is a bit of pressure especially when you are not in your own kitchen, but you make it work."
All of the chefs were live streamed on our YouTube channel so if you didn't make it to The Hospitality Show join our YouTube channel where videos of all the chefs will be uploaded in the coming weeks.
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