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 ‘class act’ by judges, finishing the challenge in first place by a large point margin. Often seen as the most prestigious of all TUCO competitions, UCB’s win made the front page of TUCO’s widely-circulated magazine with the title ‘Bringing back gold’ – alluding to the pair’s past successes as lecturers at the University and highly qualified chefs.
“Winning this contest amongst such stiff competition from other universities simply confirms UCB’s place at the top of the leader board,” said Gio, three-time winner of Midland Chef of the Year and winner of the Louis Cipolla award for Outstanding Contribution to Education.
“It 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.”
Find out more about the courses taught by Richard and Gio at UCB’s College of Food.
