In association with

We’ve taken The Staff Canteen Live 2015 to The Hospitality Show at NEC Birmingham and we’ve brought some of the finest names in the industry with us.

Visitors to The Hospitality Show saw Michelin-starred chefs skin hares, salt bake celeriac and successfully cook soufflé under pressure on the first day of The Staff Canteen Live 2015.

The audience watched as Adam Stokes from Adam's, opened the show with his hare, red cabbage and haggis dish; demonstrating how to skin the hare and the techniques needed to take off the meat which was then placed in a water bath.

Adam said: “I don’t think people expected me to have a hare there which needed to be skinned but I think it’s a great way to engage with the audience. It’s an animal and I think people need to see where the dish comes from.

“Shows like this are important – we want to inspire young chefs and using a number of techniques makes the demonstration more interesting and accessible to them.”

It was a hard act to follow but Steve Love from Loves Restaurant rose to the challenge by not just preparing seared venison loin but also attempting a live soufflé. “It’s great for audience participation,” explained Steve. “There’s always the ‘will they or won’t they rise’ element to a soufflé and it keeps everyone guessing.

“Doing live demos is always nerve wracking but you get some great questions which inspire you as the audience often look at things from a different perspective.”

It was a full house at every demonstration today as each dish offered something unique for chefs and foodies to watch and taste.

Chris Harrod from the Crown at Whitebrook chose to do a vegetable dish which included foraged ingredients to compliment his Jerusalem artichoke. Sharing tips with those watching, Chris demonstrated how cooking the artichoke sous vide gave the vegetable maximum flavour.

He said: “Everything we use is sourced locally, I wanted to bring a dish which showcased this as it’s what our restaurant is all about. Today was fun and exciting and it was nice to have the feedback.

“Being able to show the audience how a restaurant dish comes together is fantastic, they could see the different components and how the flavour is built from the first to the last ingredient.”

Finishing today’s show were Richard Turner from Turners Restaurant and Luke Tipping from Simpsons Restaurant. Richard boasted the most luxurious ingredients of the day but admitted he may have tried to do too much!

He cooked roast pave of sea bass with chestnuts, langoustines and Perigord truffle and despite running a little over time he delivered a show stopping dish which the audience were keen to try.

“I chose the dish because I wanted to do something different,” explained Richard. “I had seen what the other chefs were cooking and I thought it would be interesting for people to see the techniques involved in preparing sea bass and langoustines. “Being able to interact with people is great, it’s not something you can do when you’re in the kitchen.”

He added: “Hopefully it’s inspiring and young chefs watching can see by putting in the hours it’s worth it because you can achieve so much – if I can get to where I am now, then anyone can!”

Luke Tipping delivered a venison dish with celeriac textures and a pickled walnut puree. He had salt baked the celeriac and he chose to cook the venison on a low heat in the oven to demonstrate how they do the dish in the restaurant.

He said: “I wanted to be a part of The Staff Canteen Live as it’s great to promote Birmingham. It’s really come of age now with four Michelin stars – it’s so diverse and there’s a fantastic vibe in the city.

“Today I was out of my comfort zone but it’s great to interact with the audience, the dish I did was simple but it requires a lot of different techniques. Hopefully we inspired people, particularly the young chefs because they are the future of our industry.”

All of the chefs were live streamed on our YouTube channel so if you can’t make it tomorrow make sure you are on YouTube when we kick off day two at 11.30am with head chef at The Dining Room, Mallory Court Hotel, Paul Foster.

He’ll be joined by Daniel Clifford of Midsummer House, Richard Bainbridge from Morston Hall and David Colcombe of Opus Restaurant.The Hospitality Show takes place at the NEC Birmingham from January, 19-21, 2015. Registration for the show is open now at: http://www.hospitalityshow.co.uk/sc/.

>>> Read more about The Staff Canteen Live here