Grand cook off for Sunday Times Food Awards

The four finalists for Chef of the Year are Henrico Grobbelaar, executive chef at the Lady Philips Restaurant in Cape Town, Joseph Govender, sous chef at the Cape's Table Bay Hotel, Jodi-Anne Pearton, owner of The Food Design Agency in Johannesburg and Tammy Henton, head chef at Arnold Tanzer's Food on the Move, also based in Johannesburg.

The four chefs shortlisted for Young Chef of The Year are all first-time entrants. They are Leon Jones, a commis (entry level) chef at the Table Bay Hotel, Gina Rebok, a commis chef at the Cape Grace Hotel in Cape Town, Ryan Howie, another commis chef from the Saxon Hotel in Johannesburg and Reiner May, a Chef de Partie.

Last year's Chef School Challenge winner, Silwood School of Cookery in Cape Town, is again shortlisted and will be up against 1000 Hills Chef School, situated 40km outside of Durban.

The overriding theme for all three competitions this year is, “Reflecting flavours of the African continent.” The competitions will run over two days in a series of cook-offs. On Wednesday, 2 September, the Chef School challenge will take place with the two finalist schools. The Young Chef and the Chef of the Year cook-offs culminate at a cocktail party awards ceremony the following evening, Thursday 3 September. All cook-offs will happen in 7th Floor's state of the art food emporium, launched last year by Foodcorp.