Top chef Alain Roux seeks top talent in Birmingham

Mar 6 2009 by Vicky Farncombe, Birmingham Mail

“You like to be able to help these young people progress but they also motivate me by the way they are,” he said.

“The last few years we have had more chefs from India and they amaze me. The way that they cook, the smells, the spices they use, I am definitely inspired.”

From 20 contestants at two regional finals (the other was held in Ealing), six were chosen to go to the national final on Monday, April 6, in London.

The eventual winner bags a three-month placement at a three-star Michelin restaurant plus £5,000 cash to further their studies, as well as a trip to visit Champagne Gosset and a set of Global Knives worth £1,000.

Former Roux scholar Steve Love, now head chef at the Cotswold House Hotel in Chipping Campden, said winning in 1997 changed his life.

“Just meeting the Roux family was phenomenal,” said Steve, who lives in Hampton Lucy outside Stratford-upon-Avon. “These guys are the Gods of British cooking.

“It’s opened so many doors and taken my cooking in a completely different direction.”