A group of professional Irish Chefs from the Northwest of Ireland have come together and founded a new regional culinary team, which intends to compete as an independent culinary team at Hotelympia, in London, next week.
 
The northwest culinary team comprises some of the top chefs from counties Donegal , Leitrim, and Sligo who have all taken part, very successfully, in international culinary competitions in the past.

Earlier this year the northwest culinary team took four golds, four silvers and six bronze medals at the Chef Ireland International competition, held in the RDS Dublin. From this achievement was born their desire to enter a team into one of the world’s most prestigious culinary competitions, Hotelympia.
 
Hotelympia is the United Kingdom and Ireland's largest hospitality and food service event and the most important event of 2014 for people involved in the hospitality industry and the Salon Culinaire is at the center of Hotelympia for all chefs. Over 8,000 chefs visit the event and for many, the three different sections of Salon Culinaire are the principle reason for their visit.
 
The team is led by international award winning chef Joe Clinton and the rest of the team are chefs Dee Clinton, Gabriel McSharry, Billy Grimes, John Kelly, Alan Fitzmaurice, Tony Campbell, and Sylvester Dolan.
 
Hotelympia is a world-class culinary competition and the largest of its kind in the UK & Ireland consisting of three elements: fine dining restaurant La Parade des Chefs, stunning culinary creations in Salon Display and the live competition thrills of the live theatre. La Parade des Chefs is the fine dining experience at the very heart of Hotelympia, where competing teams of chefs from around the world cook for visitors and their guests. The newly formed northwest culinary team said they are determined to win La Parade des Chefs.
 
"We have about 25 members in the complete team between the eight main exhibition chefs and the backup team. These are both young and senior men and women who want to promote the local region in terms of tourism and in particular our regional food," said Gabriel McSharry, the culinary team manager.

"We believe that we have the best quality food in the world produced locally and at our fingertips and we want to expose this great food product to the rest of the world. Our shores contain an abundance of beautiful seafood, sea vegetables and a host of other marine foods. Our fields are filled with wonderful organic fruit and vegetables."
 
Chef Joe Clinton said "We are looking forward to competing as an international culinary team at Hotelympia London next week and we look forward to putting our skills and knowledge, as professional Chefs, to the test, without fear on the world stage!

"We will take this opportunity to promote Ireland and our North West region which will hopefully create more tourism and hospitality jobs in our region."
 
Check out the northwest culinary team Facebook page or follow them on Twitter.
 
For more from Zack see www.IrishFoodguide.ie.