Glenrothes man set to serve up a culinary battle

Robbie Penman has been chosen as a member of the Scottish team for the competition which takes place in Wales next month.

He’ll be helping the other six members of the team from north of the border to cook a three course meal for 80 people in three hours.

Every year two international teams are invited to compete against the Welsh National Culinary Team at the Welsh International Culinary Championships.

And this year it’s an all UK line up, with Scotland, Wales and England competing for the title at the event in Coleg Llandrillo Cymru in Rhos on Sea from February 16-18.

They will be battling it out under the critical gaze of a panel of international judges.

The contest, which is endorsed by the World Association of Chefs Societies (WACS), was introduced in 2006 and winners to date have previously included Scotland, so Robbie and his team mates will be hoping to win it for their country again.

For the competition, Robbie will be joining Bruce Lawrence (Entier), Orry Shand (The Chester), Craig Palmer (The Chester), Darren Seggie (City of Glasgow College), Gareth Linden (The Champany Inn) and Ross Murray (New Lanark Mill Hotel).

Cooking under pressure during a competition is not something new to Robbie, as last year he was one of eight chefs to compete in the Scottish Chef of the Year competition, winning a bronze award.

And it was because of his past competition experiences that Kevin MacGillivary, culinary team director at the Federation of Chefs Scotland, chose him to compete again.

He has previously competed with the Scottish Culinary Team twice at the World Culinary Cup winning silver medals and also winning silver at the Culinary Olympics in 2008.

Robbie said: “I’m very excited to showcase some of Scotland’s best produce and proud to represent my country.

“I’m very excited to be part of a team with some of the top chefs from Scotland.”