Corby chef wins extra care housing Chef of the Year award

A Corby chef has won an extra care housing chef of the year competition.

Shaun Williams, Chef Manager at Anchor’s Swan Gardens, extra care housing in School Place, went up against eight other chefs from across the country in a final held at Sheffield Hallam University.

In a Masterchef-like final held on Tuesday (March 26), Shaun had to prepare a three-course-meal on a budget of £10 per head in under two hours.

Shaun said: “It was intense. You only get two hours and you have to cook everything from fresh and because you’re being watched and judged, there’s six judges walking around asking questions as you’re doing it.

“I loved it. It was a bit nerve-wracking, especially with cameras on you all the time. You don’t want to cut your finger and say a bad word.

“My family was watching and you can write messages as it goes along. I was getting ‘Team Shaun’ and stuff like that.”

The event was streamed live to hundreds of people. Shaun’s family, including his wife who was in tears, watched on proudly from home as Shaun won the competition.

Residents of Swan Gardens are also very proud of Shaun’s achievement.

Shaun said: “They’re over the moon, absolutely over the moon. One guy came up and he was filling up, he said ‘I knew you’d do it.’ It’s as much for them, I’m their chef, that’s the way they look at it.”

For winning the competition Shaun received a glass trophy, a carving set, a chef of the year jacket and £150 of love to shop vouchers as well as the title of Chef of the Year.

The competition is run by Caterplus, who are Anchor’s national catering provider in Extra Care Housing.

It enables their chefs to shout about all of the pioneering ways they are able to serve their residents highly nutritional, great tasting and exceptionally presented meals.

All the meals that the competing chefs present are created from the same local, high quality, fresh ingredients that they use when preparing meals for the residents.

Applications were open to all chefs across the organisation regardless of level, where they were asked to create and present a three-course menu including a starter, main and dessert.