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It was another first for The Staff Canteen Live 2017 this week as we took our stage to London and made our debut at the International Food and Drink Exhibition at the ExCel.

We welcomed to the stage chefs Robert Ortiz from LIMA, Alexandru Craciun from Sosharu, and Kim Woodward from Skylon.

First up a pioneer of Peruvian cuisine, Robert Ortiz, head chef of LIMA and head of culinary development of the LIMA Group, who returned for his second The Staff Canteen Live to display his scallops tiradito dish with yellow chilli, kiwicha and red amaranth. We were also treated to an extra dish as he did a wild seabass ceviche too.

On live demos Robert said: “It’s fun and The Staff Canteen Live is interesting to be a part of, seeing the chef community and working with your peers is great. I’m very proud of Peruvian cuisine and I like to showcase the produce, but at the same time I like ti mix it with the produce in the UK which is wonderful.”

He added: “A community like The Staff Canteen joins us all together and if you don’t know anything or you want to find out something, you can go there and ask questions and its interesting because there’s millions of followers now and you can get easily connected with others."

Next up was executive head chef Alex Craciun from Sosharu, who spent a year cooking in Japan to hone his knowledge of Japanese cuisine. He also prepared two dishes beginning with butterfish sashimi with pickled rhubarb followed by a chicken rice pot.

“The Staff Canteen Live was interesting,” explained Alex. “It’s good to do something new and I love doing demonstrations I just need to get used to it a bit more! It’s good to get out of the kitchen and interact with the audience, we cook our food to share it and make people happy.

“Watching these demos you can see a lot of different chefs, showcasing different dishes and techniques. You can definitely learn from it.”

On The Staff Canteen he added: “It’s perfect for a chef, if you’re passionate about what you do and if you like what you do then that’s the reason why you should check it out.”

Our finally chef of the day was Kim Woodward best known for her role at the Savoy Grill as she was the first female head chef in the restaurant’s 126-year history. She has since moved to Skylon as executive chef and today she showed us a roasted lamb cannon dish with sweet breads, wild garlic puree, Turkish morels and salt baked turnips.

She said: “I love doing live demos. It’s a great way to get the word out about chefs and I think The Staff Canteen plays a great part in doing that.

“I like the interaction with a new audience, and it’s so important for me to get the message out about great food and restaurants particularly in London. Demos allow you to see the food and style which different restaurants are doing. I love knowledge so knowing more about ingredients and what is in season – that’s what I myself get from watching demonstrations.”

As always The Staff Canteen Live would not be possible without our sponsors, headline at IFE is Westlands, but also we have Essential Cuisine, Wenlock Spring Water, Catering Appliance and Rexmartins.

By Jonas Kalvis

>>> Read more about The Staff Canteen Live here