British teams triumphant at this years culinary olympics.

The British Junior and Senior teams competing at the culinary Olympics in Erfurt, Germany, returned last week as the highest performing British competitors with a hoard of 35 medals between them.

The Senior team, headed up by Simon Hulstone of Elephant restaurant in Torquay and winner of the Knorr National Chef of the Year competition, secured 25 silver medals, while the Junior team, led by Westminster Kingsway College’s  Simon Stocker, took home five silver and five bronze medals.

Although the medal haul was the most from a British Culinary Olympic team, it sadly was not enough to win the competition, with first, second and third places going to the Norwegian, German and Swedish teams respectively.

Brian Cotterill, President of the Chefs and Cooks circle was overall organiser for the British Culinary Olympic Team and expressed his pride in the British team’s performance.

Competing against 32 other national teams, the British teams participated in gruelling rounds including a cold buffet task for the seniors, and a ‘cooking studio’ competition for the juniors. Both teams were also required to take part in the hot kitchen element of the Olympics, which saw eight national teams a day serve a 120-cover, Michelin-standard three course meal to paying customers. Random dishes were picked by the judges for close scrutiny to encourage the chefs to maintain high standards of cooking throughout the service.

The Welsh team also did well with with 24 medals, while the Scottish team picked up 10. The Compass Group and the Craft Guild of Chefs teams both won 15 and 14 medals respectively.

The Culinary Olympics are held every four years in its home country of Germany. Having begun in 1900 with just four competing teams, it has now become the biggest culinary exhibition in the world, with over 1,600 chefs competing this year alone.