The Staff Canteen Live at HRC 2022, Day 2

Day two of The Staff Canteen Live's return to HRC was a hoot, as we were joined by another great line-up of chefs

To start the show, the team from Michelin-starred Pied à Terre Asimakis Chaniotis and David Moore took to the stage at 11am.

Asimakis began the demonstrations with a wonderful 'Ionian sea' dish: marinated sardines, fennel spheres, ouzo gel, pickled mustard seeds, seawater jelly dish. Here is his recipe.

Unfortunately, the duo had to return to their busy restaurant so weren't able to stick around and enjoy the other demonstrations, but before they left, Asimakis told us about his experience at the show.

"It's a nice opportunity for us to show the restaurant and show what we do and explain to all the people here our view and show our food to the world, basically," he said. 

Next up was award-winning chef Sally Abé of The Conrad London St James', joined by The Pem sous-chef Jessica Donovan, who prepared a dish of raw orkney scallops, Delica pumpkin, pumpkin seed praline, and pickled cavolo Nero. The dish, for which you can find the recipe here, was a hit with the audience.

After Sally, it was Michael Wignall's turn to take to the stage. The chef-patron of Michelin-starred The Angel at Hetton cooked his Anjou squab pigeon with a pudding of its own offal, fermented salsify, roasted koji and fresh peppercorn dish. Here is his recipe if you'd like to try it out yourself.

The final chef to take the stage was the famed chef-patron of Gareth Ward, joined by fellow Ynyshir chef, Lewis Welburn, and together they prepared a dish of 64% Manjari, Shiitake, and Kaffir Lime. 

All the chefs on stage had the assistance of a student from Milton Keynes College, our TSC Live partners, and ingredients, tools and equipment were supplied by our sponsors - Hospitality Rewards, Major International, Rational, P&G Professional, Crown Cellars, Quorn professional, Mara Seaweed - as were the goodie bags given to the chefs to thank them for taking part. 

After each chef's demonstration, they answered the audience’s questions. The audience were invited to ask any question they wanted to practical tips and advice, to where they like to eat on their days out.

Speaking on the student assistance, Asimakis said, "It's definitely a benefit for them, it gives them the opportunity to work with great chefs, they see different things, and they can kinda understand how it is to work on a high-end restaurant."

Overall, given all the chef's and audience's reactions to everything, it seems like today was another success.

Michael Wignall said: "it's just nice to meet people, the colleges, and just people in general that you wouldn't normally meet or come into contact with. It's just nice to be out and it's just nice to bring a little bit of the restaurant to a big show like this."

Michael Puckett of Crown Cellars lauded the event a success, and said: "It's been great. I mean, post-Covid I wasn't expecting a huge turnout. I thought people would be pretty cautious but [it] was nice and busy, plenty of people were around."

"It feels like we've not been away, which is really nice. People are out in droves and we could do with that. It's good news."

Paul Saunders, marketing manager at Major International concurred, and said:  "It's been very good. Especially being next to the [Staff Canteen] stage, so we get a lot of footfall in, a lot of customers coming who've not even used us before. It's been a great show so far."

Tomorrow being the final day of the show, Paul said he is looking forward to "showing more chefs out there our products, to fill them with inspiration." 

Day 3 will be just as fun and exciting, as we will be joined by Nick Beardshaw, Dom Chapman, Oli Williamson, and Jeremy Chan for even more great demonstrations.

Visitors can click here to register for a free ticket to the show.