As I say every year, Chefs are in more demand than ever, with the industry crying out for new recruits. HRC and Salon Culinaire give us, the ‘cheffing’ industry, the opportunity to shine and show off our talents, encouraging others to join and make us stronger in the long term.  This year's features have been moved to a more central location due to the popularity of the audience needing additional space to take in all the amazing work.

 The competition line-up for 2025 has all the regular competitions with the return of DOTY, “Dessert of the Year”. The Craft Guild of Chefs have taken the Association of Pastry Chefs under their wing and with the guidance of Matt Owens it is moving towards being a thriving association again, with DOTY their premiere competition. If you’re into vegetarian or vegan dishes, St Ewe Free Range eggs will be challenging you to create a dish using their premiere eggs, or creating a plant based dish using Oatly cream. Australian Beef launched a successful competition showcasing Wagu Beef [supplied] last year and are back again for 2025. Tilda Team of the Year is focussing on Street Food and Essential are challenging you to create a pub dish using either a pheasant or some venison meat.  

There are many different competitions for chefs of varying levels of skills and experience, so I’m sure you will find a class that will appeal to you. As well as adding new classes to the program we brought back some of the most popular competitions from previous years, including the Mystery Basket Grand Prix, which is always oversubscribed, and the Alaska Seafood Masters competition, with a twist on the senior pasta class this year to create a filled pasta that may go into production for Dell’Ugo if they feel appropriate. 

Following the success of the Skills Service competitions of 2024 we will be increasing the area allocated to this feature. Colleges the length and breadth of the country fought for spaces in both the kitchen and service skills feature area. Please remember, we are very flexible on covering all classes every day, to assist with your college's transport needs.

All colleges will be also be fighting it out for the “John Retallick Memorial Trophy” given in memory of the past Salon Chairman, last year’s winners Westminster Kingsway will be back fighting to retain their title. The trophy is given to the college that leads the medal table at the end of the show, starting with the most GOLD medals coming first.

As I previously mentioned, Static Salon Display and Sugarcraft, saw the highest increase in entries primarily due to some new classes the team added, and they have further great new ideas for 2025.  

Please be sure to check out the website for some useful masterclass videos demonstrating some of the skills tests that we will be challenging our students and apprentices with, techniques needed to produce medal-winning Salon Display exhibits, and guides on making the most out of the fantastic equipment on offer. In order to maximise your competing experience, please do check out the competition pages on the Salon website – there is a huge amount of information that you will need and which will help to clarify the rules, setting you up for competition success. 

The Live Theatre kitchens were kitted out with state-of-the-art cooking equipment for our competitors to cook with. Thanks to our partners Unox who supplied the combi-ovens and Liebherr for refrigeration. 

Good luck to all competitors, I hope that participating in International Salon Culinaire is both rewarding and enjoyable and gives you an experience and a challenge that will motivate you to reach greater heights in your career. Don’t forget to get all your colleagues to register to visit the event so they can support your entry. 

On behalf of all the Montgomery Group and the International Salon Culinaire team, I would like to thank all of our sponsors, the Salon teams, judges and colleagues for their continued support. 

Huge thanks to the Montgomery Group, who continue to invest in the development of chefs by hosting the Salon. 

We look forward to welcoming you in 2025, sign up to the newsletter to be the first to know when 2025 entries are open.