Why would an amateur sign up for a public battle with three professional chefs?

Nicky Gurret decided to tackle the City Food Festival Chef Competition as a tribute to her late father, Edmond Gurret.

The executive chef spent years working at the Hamilton Princess and other hotels in that group before he died in 2012, age 82.

“I love cooking but it’s a tough industry,” she said.

“My father always told me there’s no way you’re going to have a hard job like me and have to work so hard so I’m an architect by profession, but a cook by osmosis.

“I wanted this to be an ode to my father, entering the competition.”

Daamian Simmons from Royal Bermuda Yacht Club beat off Ms Gurret, Jeffrey Olmedo from Rosa’s Cantina and 2015 champion Boyet Katigbak of ChopFusion on Wednesday night.

Ms Gurret said: “Of course I would [have loved] to win but every judge is different; it’s all so subjective in the end. What I wanted was for people not to be able to tell that I wasn’t a professional chef.

“I wanted to be happy with my dish and to think that my dad would have been proud.”

Mr Gurret received a number of prestigious culinary awards during his career.

His native France awarded him the highest medal, the Chevalier dans l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole (Knight in the National Order of Agricultural Merit), because of his contribution to French cuisine worldwide.

“Food, when I was growing up, was very important in our house; it was always a topic of conversation,” said Ms Gurret.

“My father would work a six-day week, from 5.30am until 10.30pm.

“He helped create the menus for [Princess restaurants] here, in the Bahamas, in Arizona and Mexico and he brought the idea of the buffet to Bermuda.

“This was in Bermuda’s hey day and he was at the peak of it working at the Princess hotels, the top in the world.

“He would serve 1,000 meals in an à la carte setting in the Tiara Room — and it was silver service. That kitchen would be like an orchestra.”

She learnt a lot from watching her father cook at work and home.

“I like small dinners. I try to be prepared before. I don’t like cooking [in front of dinner guests] so I do things like paella, couscous and a stew — things my father taught me.

“He liked simple foods: a nice cooked steak without any sauces — and the French are known for their sauces. He’d have it with potatoes with garlic and parsley and string beans.”

The City Food Festival Chef Competition final takes place at 5pm tomorrow on Front Street. Mr Simmons will go head to head with Monday’s winner, Dick Reno of The Smokin’ Barrel.

Chefs were asked to prepare three canapés from a box of ingredients during Monday’s and Wednesday’s elimination rounds

Ms Gurret’s group was given a basket of coconut, chicken, red bell pepper, salami and grapes. The amateur chef’s French Rose consisted of whole grain bread, salami, parsley, cheese.

Her second canapé, which she called The Secret Garden of the East, was made with coconut, grape, chicken, bell peppers, salami, ginger, lime, lemon grass, chilli, chives, cilantro, bean sprouts, fish sauce; The Brazilian Bloom used coconut, chicken, cumin, cardamom, turmeric, coconut, bell peppers, tomatoes, parsley and nasturtium flowers.

“I love cooking although I’ve never been in a competition before,” she said.

“I think I do very good meals at home, but when I cook I put more emphasis on the sit-down part of the meal.

“When I have people over the food is second to creating the ambience. It’s about fun and relaxation and enjoyment of conversation; food is the catalyst for that.

“But I’d seen the competition and have some free time at the moment and so decided, why not give it a try?

“I told the judges I was not a chef but they said it was OK, I could enter.

“I was extremely nervous. I kept thinking, ‘What have I gotten into?

“Why am I putting so much pressure on myself?’”