To secure the prize, Richard and Gio cooked for two hours in front of a live audience at the University of Warwick. Each team, from a total of 17 universities, was required to cook a three-course meal involving rainbow trout, a notoriously difficult-to-handle fish, and an entire Gressingham duck, a unique breed renowned for its superior taste.
Richard and Gio were dubbed a 鈥榗lass act鈥� by judges, finishing the challenge in first place by a large point margin. Often seen as the most prestigious of all TUCO competitions, UCB鈥檚 win made the front page of TUCO鈥檚 widely-circulated magazine with the title 鈥楤ringing back gold鈥� 鈥� alluding to the pair鈥檚 past successes as lecturers at the University and highly qualified chefs.
鈥淲inning this contest amongst such stiff competition from other universities simply confirms UCB鈥檚 place at the top of the leader board,鈥� said Gio, three-time winner of Midland Chef of the Year and winner of the Louis Cipolla award for Outstanding Contribution to Education.
鈥淚t has been a long time since either Richard or I entered a competition like this, so the pressure was on to make sure we got it right. But we were really happy with the final result, and are very excited to visit the Netherlands.鈥�
Find out more about the courses taught by Richard and Gio at UCB鈥檚聽College of Food.
