After being invited by the Craft Guild of Chefs, Le Cordon Bleu London will host the semi-final of the prestigious National Chef of the Year 2016 competition to be held on the 24th June 2015.

This year, the esteemed panel of judges will be chaired by Clare Smyth, chef patron at the three Michelin starred restaurant Gordon Ramsay. She will oversee the shortlist of 40 chefs that will select to go through to the semi-finals.

For the second year running the UK’s leading culinary school is to partner the industry’s most prestigious award which is well known to create quite a buzz in the industry. Le Cordon Bleu has over 120 years experience in the culinary industry and offers the finest education in food, beverages, hospitality and tourism management. With more than 40 schools in 20 countries with over 20,000 students graduating each year, Le Cordon Bleu actively review their academic programmes to adapt to the future needs of students and the hospitality industry.

Alan Swinson, Culinary Arts Director at Le Cordon Bleu London comments on the partnership between the two significant names in the culinary industry: “Le Cordon Bleu is delighted to be hosting the semi-finals of the National Chef of the Year for the second time.

“It was a pleasure last year to have so many of the UK’s leading chefs, which included some of our very own Master Chefs who made up a part of the judging panel under our roof. So many of tomorrow’s future talent were also able to compete and benefit from the state-of-the-art facilities we are fortunate enough to have in our new school on Bloomsbury Square. We are really looking forward to welcoming the National Chef of The Year team again this year.”

This year, the brief is to create an innovative menu for four people, focusing on technical skills, seasonality and sustainably sourced ingredients. The eight successful chefs selected at this stage will go through to the National Chef of the Year final which takes place at The Restaurant Show on Tuesday 6th October.

The competition which has been open to chefs in all sectors of the industry has been running since 1972 and has since seen the cream of the culinary world take the title in previous years. These have included Gordon Ramsay, David Everitt-Mathias and Mark Sargeant.

>>> Read more about National Chef of the Year 2014, Russell Bateman

Last year’s winner, Russell Bateman recently stated that: “It’s a huge honour to win National Chef of the Year. It’s amazing to think my name has been added to that list of wonderful past winners. To be recognized by the fantastic line up of judges was a massive boost for me personally. I look forward to seeing the competition go from strength to strength.”

>>> Everything you need to know about Natioanl Chef of the Year right here