The Craft Guild of Chefs Graduate Awards 2018 are now well underway, with the final set to take place 21 August!

What are the Graduate Awards?

The Graduate Awards were founded in 2002 by Vice-President, Steve Munkley, who saw a real need in the industry for providing formal recognition of young chefs’ culinary excellence.

We have created a Kitchen and Pastry Graduate examination, for chefs aged 23 and under, to test and improve the skills which chefs have learnt at college and in their early careers, and take them to the next level.

The entry process includes completing the online or paper entry form, live heats and then the final examination. Chefs will learn and develop at each stage of the awards. The kitchen examinations includes a theory paper, butchery and fishmongery tasks as well as creating a ‘mystery basket’ dish, classic main course and a dessert that will really impress the panel of culinary experts.

Receiving the Graduate Award has proved career changing with previous graduates going on to gain Michelin stars, work in some of the world’s top restaurants, be part of the World Skills team and even win the Young National Chef of the Year title.

Former Young National Chef of the Year winner, Ruth Hansom, said: “The Graduate Awards is about improving and testing out basic culinary skills and so I would encourage every young chef to enter. You never know what’s going to come up in the exam. For example, we had rabbit on ours which isn’t something I would normally prepare as part of my day job but this exam forced me to try something different.”

It is the 16th year of the Graduate Awards examination and with so much talk about lack of skills and chef shortages, it provides the perfect opportunity to improve young chefs’ skills and showcase the culinary talent the UK has to offer.

You can join in the conversation about the Graduate Awards and engage with other young chefs by tweeting @Craft_Guild, using the hashtag #CGCGradAwards.