Khalid Khan wins inaugural British Culinary Chef of the year competition

Khalid Khan, from the Lasan Restaurant in Birmingham, was named British Culinary Chef of the Year at the British Curry Awards, the first time this competition to find the best chef in the spice restaurant sector has been held. The event took place in November at the University of West London, who kindly provided all the facilities to host the cook-off.
Khalid beat off tough competition from some of the best in the business. Other chefs shortlisted were Chad Rahman of Chez Mumtaj in St Albans; Mariappan Sethurajapillai, of Delhi 6 in Sutton Coldfield; Alun Sperring from Brighton’s Chilli Pickle; and Azad Hussain, the Oxfordshire restaurant Vine and Spice’s head chef.
The five contestants cooked a two course dinner for a panel of experienced judges including Peter Grove, ITN’s Derek Dyson, Steve Myall at the Daily Mirror, Robert Walton and Professor David Foskett. The standard of the cooking was exceptionally high, but Khalid Khan triumphed thanks to a consistently excellent selection of dishes. He simply did not put a foot wrong.
Peter Grove says,”It was clear that this was a high pressure competition, which all the contestants were keen to do well in.”
The event was organised to help give chefs the recognition they deserve. As Enam Ali, Spice Business editor, points out, “Chefs are the often unsung heroes of our industry. At the competition we saw five chefs with very different styles but all were top class. We will be running the British Culinary Chef of the Year event again in 2012 and hope that more chefs put themselves forward for consideration.”