Loughborough College
City of Liverpool College
City College Norwich
Ayrshire College
Newcastle College
City of Glasgow College
Westminster Kingsway
SERC (Downpatrick) College
Newbury College
Gloucestershire College
University of Derby
College of West Anglia
Highbury College
Waltham Forrest
East Kent College
North East Scotland College

Taking place throughout January, the three-man teams will be subjected to “intense competition conditions” while cooking under the eye of Craft Guild of Chefs Chairman of Judges, Chris Basten, and challenge organiser Emma Holden of the Country Range Group.

With only 10 qualifying for the Live Grand Final on 7 March at Hotelympia 2018, organiser Emma Holden said: “The standard of entrants this year has been remarkably high and the menus put forward by the student chefs sound absolutely delicious so I’m very excited to see the finished dishes and try the food. The paper judging standard increases every single year so it’s now up to the teams to deal with the pressure and ensure they can do the menus and ingredients they have chosen justice.”

Chris Basten, Craft Guild of Chefs Chairman of Judges, added: “Spice themes always ensure creativity so it’s brilliant to see such innovative uses of different spices across the menus.

“Balancing spices in dishes is a tough skill so it’s obvious a lot of testing and preparation has been put into the applications. Congratulations to everyone who applied as each and every application had merit but unfortunately only 10 can now make it through so a well done to them.”