TALENTED chef Arron Tye ticked off one of his career ambitions when hereceived theJunior Chef of Wales trophy.

The 23-year-old chef de partie from Carden Park Hotel, Chester, who is captain of Junior Culinary Team Wales, clinched the coveted title after a closely contested final at the Welsh International Culinary Championships (WICC) at Grŵp Llandrillo Menai’s, Rhos-on-Sea campus.

Arron preparing his dishes

“I have always wanted to win this award and hopefully I can go forward to the National Chef of Wales final in the future,” he said.

“I hope this award means that I am going to do great things and move up with my career.

Arron’s Junior Culinary Team Wales teammate Harry Paynter-Roberts, 20, of Manchester House Restaurant, Manchester, was a runner-up for the second year running.

Arron, who is from Wrexham, receives the Junior Chef of Wales trophy from Lesley
Griffiths, Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs

Arron’s reward for winning the competition is a three-day, all-inclusive culinary tour with Koppert Cress in Holland, which will include a
masterclass from a two-star Michelin chef, cooking for the company’s chief executive in a development kitchen and an introduction to new cress developments and Dutch cuisine new market trends.

Arron, who is from Wrexham, also automatically qualified for the Craft Guild of Chefs’ Young National Chef of the Year contest semi-final and received a set of engraved knives from Friedr Dick and a £100 voucher for products from Churchill.

The chefs cooked a three-course menu for four people in three hours, using Welsh ingredients wherever possible.

Arron’s winning menu opened with a starter of pan fried Anglesey scallops and seabass fillet with tortellini, charred Welsh baby leeks, pickled onion cups, leek puree and onion broth. Main course was Rhug Estate organic pork fillet wrapped pancetta served with sage and onion sausage, glazed young carrot, pot roasted savoy cabbage and orange and carrot puree. Dessert was Blodyn Aur rapeseed sponge with Gwynt y Ddraig cider apples, honeycomb tuile, loganberry cremeux and blackberry ice cream.

Arron Tye with his winning dishes

Paynter-Roberts served up a starter of roasted scallops, celeriac and beurre noisette followed by a main course of salt age duck breast, blackberry and baked beetroot. Dessert was quince, red wine, walnut and vanilla ice cream.

The WICC are organised by the Culinary Association of Wales and the main sponsor is Food and Drink Wales, the Welsh Assembly Government’s department representing the food and drink industry.