We Meet The Winners - Best Restaurant Manager & Service Awards

Last week we had an extraordinary experience as guests at a competition to find the best front of house staff in Britain. This was hosted at Bibendum restaurant and was organised by the excellent Royal Academy of Culinary Arts. This prestigious award, part of The Master of Culinary Arts, takes place every four years.

We supplied the fresh produce to Chef Claude Bosi and his talented team in the kitchens at Bibendum.

This was a high-stakes event for the various competitors, which included staff from Galvin at Windows, The Lanesborough, Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons and The Goring Hotel. The judge on our table was Didier Felix from the City of London Club.

Starters at the event included: pine nut risotto, English snails and vin jaune; Cornish crab with smoked kipper and cucumber; bourride de poisson.

For second fish courses: cod, coconut and langoustine sauce, marigold oil; Cornish monkfish Singaporean style. For meat, there was beef with coffee, hazlenut and pickled walnut and guinea fowl with Scottish langoustine and French tarragon.

The photo below shows finalist Daniel Crump from The Greyhound in Beaconsfield, who served at our table. "Daniel was absolutely brilliant," says Marcus, who was particularly taken by the Cep Tart with Banana Ice Cream. "But it must have been stressful being judged by the great beasts in the restaurant trade."