National Chef of the Year 2024 finalists revealed

This year’s line-up is made up of senior chefs from restaurants including Frog by Adam Handling. The Forest Side and Northcote (see below for the full list). 

After making the top 40 in the competition last month, the chefs were asked to create an amuse-bouche or pre-dessert with the theme ‘a taste of summer’ using seasonal ingredients.

The chefs were asked to bring this to life with a story of a personal food hero such as an inspirational chef, family member, mentor or industry personality.

A new group of judges marked this second-round stage with an overall score for both rounds created to find the top ten highest rated chefs. 

“The forty semi-finalists didn’t make this an easy decision for us and there was a lot of deliberation to select just ten chefs, but I am confident we have an incredible level of talent cooking for us in the final,” says Restaurant Gordon Ramsay chef patron and chair of judges Matt Abé. “The second stage was really impressive with some great storytelling around the food.”

Competition director and food innovation and sustainability director at Sodexo UK and Ireland David Mulcahy added: “Judging this competition gets harder each year as we continue to attract some of the best talent in the UK to enter. Now this judging stage is complete, we turn our attention to the mentor day where we’ll bring the finalists together to learn from our judges, sponsors and each other. This is such an important element of the process as this competition is about so much more than winning. It’s about building connections, raising profiles and growing as a chef both professionally and personally.” 

In the final - which is being held on 8 October - the chefs will serve up their original menus from the online entry stage but are able to make small refinements to ensure that they make the best dishes possible. 

Past winners of the competition include David Everitt-Matthias, Simon Hulstone, Luke Selby and Gordon Ramsay.