Chef of the Year: and the winner is…
Dated: 22/9/2006
Manchester Confidential

The Knorr Chef of the Year competition took place this week in London, and the results are in. Find out how the Northwest fared…

As promised, here we are with the results of this year’s Knorr Chef of the Year awards.

Drumroll please… the newly crowned National Chef of the Year is none other than our very own Eyck Zimmer, head chef at the Lowry restaurant. Hurray!

Eyck fended off stiff competition in the semi finals to make it through to Wednesday night’s grand final, in which six finalists were challenged with the task of creating a three course menu using a box of mystery ingredients. Included in the mystery box were Duck, Veal Fillet, Veal Kidney, Scallops, Herring and Oyster.

Eyck impressed the judges with his gastronomic genius and went on to be awarded the prestigious and highly sought after title of National Chef of the Year.

Already an industry award winner, Eyck has received a large number of first class awards and in 2000 was awarded the prestigious Master of Culinary Arts (MCA), formerly the Meilleur Ouvrier de Grande Bretagne (MOGB) by the Academy of Culinary Arts, which has only ever been won by 13 chefs in the UK

Eyck’s winning menu (as copied and pasted from the press release that we received) went as follows:
Ravioli of Oyster with Cevice of scallop, atuvee of leek with a smoked bacon ecume

Roast Barbarry Duck with spiced cherry jus, parsley puree and potatoe pirogge

Apple Financier with cider and rusket apple jelly.

Mmmm. Just give me a moment…

Right, I’m back. Where was I? Oh yes, the Chef of the Year. Eyck Zimmer. Go and try him out at the Lowry’s River Restaurant before he gets too cocky and puts all his prices up.

Oh and by the way – if anybody knows what on earth an ‘atuvee’or a ‘rusket apple’ are, please let us know. All sounds beautiful, but even Gordo is confused. We’ll offer a £50 restaurant tab to the first person to enlighten us.

Jayne Robinson