A TALENTED chef who works at the Three Horseshoes Inn in Groesffordd has reached the final of the National Chef of Wales competition.

Gavin Kellett, 33, battled through to the last four after eight chefs from across Wales contested a closely fought semi-final on Monday (January 14).

Joining Gavin in the final – to be held at the Welsh International Culinary Championships in Rhos-on-Sea on February 28 – will be last year’s Junior Chef of Wales winner Arron Tye and Arron’s two colleagues at the Chester Grosvenor, Matthew Ramsdale and Sam Griffiths.

Just two points separated the top four chefs after the keenly fought cook-off at Coleg Ystrad Mynach’s Hengoed Campus.

The chefs were given three hours to cook and serve up a three-course menu for four people, using mostly Welsh products. They had to cook a vegan starter, a main course using two different cuts of Welsh Beef and a dessert including chocolate as the main ingredient.

Gavin, who has reached the final for the second year running, was the only chef from the morning’s first semi-final to clinch a place.

His menu included a starter of Waldorf salad with Blodyn Aur emulsion, Tyr Gobaith faux pickled apples, poached celeriac, burnt apple and walnut bread. Main course was Butty Bach glazed fillet of Welsh Beef, braised oxtail, Menai oyster, baked potato foam, beef dripping confit carrots and grain crust. Dessert was Nom Nom Chocolate and Penderyn whisky set custard, peanuts, Welsh honeycomb and Halen Mon salted caramel.

The winner out of the final four will be invited to a study tour hosted by Koppert Cress in the Netherlands and will receive a set of engraved F. Dick Knives and £250 worth of Churchill tableware.

The judges were Coin Gray, Capital Cuisine, Caerphilly, Nick Davies, Culinary Team Wales manager from Cambrian Training Company, Welshpool, Danny Burke, Olive Tree Catering, Runcorn and Stuart McLoed, managing director of Zuidam UK Ltd, Tewkesbury.

“They were very closely fought semi-finals with some outstanding cooking by the competitors, which we expected due to the calibre of chefs,” said judges’ chairman Mr Gray.

“They produced top quality fine dining dishes, which substantiated our view that Wales has some great chefs. There were just a couple of points separating the top four chefs which augurs well for next month’s final.”

He praised the chefs’ use of the Welsh food and drink products in their dishes and was impressed how they responded to the challenge of creating a vegan starter.

“We had seven interesting vegetarian options and all the chefs embraced the challenge completely,” he said.

The WICC are organised by the CAW and main sponsor is Food and Drink Wales, the Welsh Assembly Government’s department representing the food and drink industry. Other sponsors include Castell Howell, Harlech Foods, Churchill, Koppert Cress, Dick Knives, Roller Grill, MCS Technical Products and Major.