Ahmedabad: An opportunity to show case your culinary skills to the world is Cambay Institute of Hospitality Management (CIHM)’s chef competition – ‘Chef Gujarat’.
Chef Gujarat is a competition conceived and executed by faculty of CIHM and is happening in association with a national cookery channel – Food Food. This competition is open for people from across Gujarat between 18 to 35 years of age, who are not professionally trained cooks. There is no registration fee.
The registration for the competition has already started. The preliminary rounds for the competition will begin from April 29 and the grand finale will be hosted on May 5. The guest judge for the finale is Chef Harpal Singh Sokhi, who will be visiting the CIHM campus and taste all the finale dishes.
The principal of CIHM, Dhananjay Kashyap, while addressing a press conference said, “We have so many star chefs around us, in our homes. We are here trying to give them a platform to share that talent and skill with the world. It will also give the participants a glimpse into the world of professional cooking and hotel kitchens as the competition will be held in the CIHM kitchen”.
Talking about the format of the competition, Chef Pankaj Kumar Singh, the senior faculty at CIHM said, “In the preliminary rounds that will start from April 29, the participants will be given ingredients at the moment and they will have to come up with a dish. The preliminary rounds will be judged by chefs of some of the prominent hotels of Ahmedabad. From the preliminary rounds, 10 finalists will be selected who will have to create their own signature dish for the grand finale”.
Talking about CIHM, Kashyap said, “Institute tries to grab every possible opportunity to interact with the community through workshops, training programmes, short term courses and such events. CIHM also supports and encourages students for activities that give back to the society like their campaign of making and distributing food and sweets in the children’s ward of civil hospital during diwali festival”. CIHM has also been running vocational training for SC / ST students to create opportunities for them in the hospitality sector.
CIHM was launched in 2008 and is currently running campuses in Gandhinagar, Udaipur, Jaipur and Neemrana. The institute offers under graduate, one year diploma and other certificate courses in hospitality management. The institute also has affiliation with University of Huddersfield, UK and Edexcel, UK for their courses. The institute has already begun admissions for the batch starting in June 2013.