# Campus

The gravy train

Meyeinla Longchar | February 3, 2015 6:55 am

The growth in the hospitality industry has given rise to an enormous demand for professional chefs and many students enrol in culinary school with the hope of heading their own gravy train. In this regard, the Novotel Hotel and Residence, Kolkata, hosted its first season of the NovoChef final competition on 21 January, a platform for budding chefs to showcase their talents. It saw the participation of around 20 students representing various institutes like IIHM, Kolkata; NSHM Knowledge Campus, Durgapur; Subhas Bose Institute of Hotel Management, Kolkata, etc. As part of the contest, they had to face an array of challenges based on their creativity through cooking innovative and “designed” fare.

Anneliya Sengupta from IAM, Kolkata, and Somtapa Chaterjee of IIHM were winners for continental cuisine, Vivek Agarwal of IIHM and Inderjeet Singh of GNIHM for Indian, Somakrashmi De of IHM for Oriental and Priyanka Paul, Jasleen Kaur and Ronodip Ghosh of IHM, Kolkata, for bakery.

“This has been a great platform for us to share our passion for food and to train professionally before facing the real industry. The competition has provided a pathway to success to promote innovation and quality in different cuisines,” said Joy Biswas, International Institute of Hotel Management, Kolkata. Today, chefs have not only evolved as money churners but are glamorous personalities as well.

“Recent developments in hospitality industry have changed its meaning and import. Now cooking is considered an art and one who gets to master it is called the king of good taste. Earlier, a chef&’s job was not held in high esteem, but the booming hotel and restaurant industry has created an unmatched demand for these professionals,” said Ashish Bagul, executive chef, Novotel. “For a bright future in this job, one needs to adapt to varying cultures and food habits. The ability to work as a team and dedication are also required. The eight winners will get to work in our industry because we will be recruiting them,” he added.