Young chef from Hemel Hempstead makes semi-finals of prestigious competition after impressing TV chefs with her dish

A chef from Hemel Hempstead has made the semi-finals of a prestigious competition to find Britain’s best young chef.

Rebecca Tough, who works at the Vacherin restaurant in London, will be competing in the Roux Scholarship Best Young Chef competition on March 7 after winning judges over with her take on a recipe brief given to all contestants.

The prolific competition, for 22 to 29-year-olds, has seen several of its winners now running their own restaurants and earning Michelin stars. And in its 40th year, it’s being judged by a host of TV chef personalities including Masterchef and Saturday Kitchen’s Michel Roux Jnr, Angela Hartnett of Great British Menu fame, Ready Steady Cook’s Brian Turner and James Martin from his eponymous Saturday Morning show.

Recipes were submitted anonymously to the judges during a Recipe Judging day earlier this month. And now ,18 finalists will compete in two regional finals at University College Birmingham and University of West London.

Rebecca’s own recipe included a pork loin stuffed with a kidney, chicken, mushroom and walnut farce, a courgette flower and a sweet potato and kidney tart.

Rebecca said: “I could not believe I made it through to the semi finals, and am taking every step in this process as a win. I am of course nervous for the next stage, but it is equally such an honour to be able to cook for some of the best chefs in the UK.”

Judge Angela Hartnett said: “We saw a lot of modern interpretations of things, lots of different spices, different herbs, processes in cooking in these recipes, which is great. You have to adhere to the classics because they underline everything, but it’s great to see they’d thought their recipes through so well.”

As well as looking at how enticing the dish was and the best use of ingredients, the judges also looked at ingredients cost and how much food wastage there would be.

For the regional final, competitors will have 2.5 hours to cook their dish, along with a dessert from a mystery box of ingredients given to them on the day.

Six winners selected from across the two regional finals will go through to the national final, which takes place at Westminster Kingsway College, London.