Unilever cranks up the heat in Durban

For 40 years now, Unilever Food Solutions has been striving to ignite the creative flames of South Africa's brightest culinary professionals with its Chef of the Year competition. On Friday the 28th of July, Unilever hosted the Durban regionals and myself, along with Everyday Glamour Girl, was invited to cover it.

To explain the format of the competition, regional finals first take place in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. There are three main categories: Juniors, Seniors and teams of 4. At every regional round, a winner is chosen from each of the three categories. These winners will then all compete in the national final (6th September) which will take place on the Unilever premises on the 6th of September.

Contestants are provided significant incentives to participate in the competition, with 1st place cash prizes ranging from R10 000 to R20 000, 2nd place cash prizes ranging from R6 000 to R12 000 and 3rd place cash prizes ranging from R4 000 to R8 000. Over and above this, the Junior winner is provided with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be an apprentice to Michelin-star winning Chef Jan Hendrik at his restaurant in Nice, France.

During each round, contestants are given a "Mystery Basket" (very similar to the "Mystery Box" used in the Masterchef competition) from which they must create 3 servings of a three-course meal. Unilever graciously dedicated one of these servings to the media, so I was allowed to dig in as well! The other servings went to the photography department and of course, the judges. The judges deliberated on each dish and scored them. These scores are then audited by Unilever to ensure there were no errors in the announcement of the winner.

There were some seriously beautiful dishes put out by the contestants, some of whom are top chefs from Durban's finest restaurants and culinary institutions (such as The Chefs Table or Vasco's as well as the 1000 Hills Chef School). The Juniors were asked to use prawns as the protein for their starter dish, ostrich as the protein for their main and a cheesecake for their dessert. The seniors used skate and mussels for their starter, pork belly for their main and strawberries (among other things) for their desserts.

All in all, it was an absolutely fantastic day out! I was able to nibble on some of the most amazing dishes prepared by Durban's absolute finest and also get to know some of them afterwards. All of the contestants seemed incredibly humbled by the experience and Unilever is to be credited for that. It is a great initiative that has boasted contestants such as the likes of Reuben Riffel in past years, and these contestants certainly wish to cement their names in the country's culinary history just as he has. Check out the slideshow below which is filled with pictures from the event and stay tuned for coverage of the finals on sowherestheham.