Fifteen-year-old competition rookie wins Juniorchef 2013

The winner of the Juniorchef 2013 competition is Matt England, a fifteen-year-old student from Wadebride School in Cornwall, who has never entered a cookery competition before.

Matt was one of six students aged between 13 and 16 years who competed in the Juniorchef 2013 finals held at East Kent College in Broadstairs, judged by two Michelin star chef and former East Kent College student, Nathan Outlaw.

Nathan Outlaw, who was judging the competition for the first time alongside Neil Wiggins, head chef at Manor Restaurant in Kent and Len Unwin, catering lecturer at Sheffield City College, said: “It’s an honour to be asked to judge such a fantastic competition. All the dishes we tried were very, very good. I was shocked; the standard was very high and they should all be very proud of themselves.”

Winner Matt England received a first prize of £250 for himself and £300 for his school for his main course of cannon of spring lamb with gratin potatoes and minted hollandaise sauce and his dessert of chilled lemon soufflé.

On winning the competition Matt said: “I’ve never done a competition before so it’s really outstanding that I’ve won. I came up with my dish quite a long time ago and I’ve been practising it loads – probably once a week or more.”

Nathan Outlaw Complimented Matt’s lamb dish saying it was very similar to something he had recently eaten at Alain Roux’s three star Waterside Inn. He also admitted that Matt’s dessert of chilled lemon soufflé was something that he himself had messed up recently.

Second prize of £150 went to Jack Button, also from Wadebridge School for his beef dish, which Nathan Outlaw praised for its balance, and his dessert of chocolate delice, which Nathan described as “a star of the show”.

Third prize of £100 went to Daniel Arscott of Hampton Academy in Middlesex for his panna cotta dessert and his main pork dish which he cooked sous vide in just a pan of water.

The three runners up, who each won £50, were Curtis Blackmore of The Waterside Centre in Lancashire, Elliot Long of the Richard Challoner School in Surrey and last year’s winner Eden Allsworth of Highstead Grammar School in Kent.

The competition was also attended by top chefs Daniel Clifford of two Michelin star Midsummer House, Graham Garrett of Michelin-starred The West House and Andrew McLeish of Michelin-starred Chapter One.