JOIN USYoung Chef Olympiad (YCO) is back with its second edition. Organised by International Institute of Hotel Management (IIHM), the event will see student chef from across the globe competing to win the title.
The first edition of YCO in 2015, was won by a young chef from Malaysia. The event had seen participation from 15 countries like Bhutan, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, USA, UK, Switzerland, Spain, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, France, Myanmar, and China including India.
This time, the culinary competition will play host to over 67 countries spread across six days and four cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata.
Speaking about the idea, Dr Suborno Bose, chairman of the YCF and CEO, IIHM tells Metrolife, “YCO is inspired by Young Chef India, a culinary competition among the student of class 11 and 12 of Indian schools, started in 2011. After four successful edition of the event, we decided to take the event on a global level and hence YCO came into being.”
YCO gives aspiring chefs a common platform where they can learn, teach, showcase and network with the best culinary schools worldwide.
“The main objective of Young Chef Olympiad is to produce world class international chefs every year. Connecting the students from India with world class chefs from across the globe lay foundations of a global connect. After the successful first edition, this year YCO is going to be bigger. We intend to keep innovating and add more nations to our list of participants every year,” adds Bose.
The competition will have two heats and a final round. Explaining the format of the competition, Chef Sanjay Kak says, “The first heat will be held in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, where contestants will have to prepare a main course dish with fish. For the second heat in Kolkata, students will be given ingredients from which they will have to churn out a vegetarian main course dish and a desert.
Counting the marks from both the heats, 10 students with highest marks will go to the finale where they have to make one dish made of chicken and one made of fish along with a desert.”
The winner will be given price money of $10,000. There will be other categories like the Best Hygienic Chef, Most Innovative Chef for which gold, silver and bronze medals will be given.
The jury includes Chef Eric Neo, President of the Singapore Chef Association and Executive Chef of Intercontinental Singapore, Chef Kunal Kapur, Indian Celebrity Chef and Karen Anand, Indian Celebrity Food Critic and many more.
The event will open on January 27 at Talkatora Indoor Stadium, New Delhi. Finale will be held in Kolkata on February 1.