This is the stuff culinary heroes are made of, or at least very good programming on the Food Network. Four young chefs, four baskets of mystery ingredients, and only four hours to conjure up a three course dinner to wow some of Bermuda’s top chefs. From this challenge would walk away only one winner – a young chef who will be representing Bermuda in an international competition of Olympic proportions in Canada next month.

And so the pot was seasoned for drama at the Bermuda College’s kitchen on Friday when Marissa Simmons, John Lima, Daniel Duperreault and Juliana D’Estelle-Roe all vied to become the top commis chef in a competition held by the local chapter of the Cha?ne de R?tisseurs.

And the one who walked away with the top honours and a ticket to the Cha?ne de R?tisseurs’ international competition in Banff, Alberta was Daniel Duperreault. A chef at the Miles Market, Daniel was trained at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City.

In describing his win, Daniel, 20, said he didn’t expect a victory considering the stiff competition. His three rivals were all trained at the Bermuda College and have considerable work experience at some of the top local restaurants. John is currently a chef at Cafe Gio in St. George’s, Marissa at the Reefs Hotel, and Juliana, who is only 17, has been cooking in the many kitchens at the Fairmont Southampton Princess Hotel.

“I love working at the Princess, because I do get to move around a variety of jobs,” Juliana said, adding that she is currently a chef at the Whaler Inn but will be moving up to the main kitchen in a few weeks.

“One of the reasons we wanted to compete for sure in this year’s competition is that in 2005 Bermuda has been chosen for the international Competition.” said Cha?ne de R?tisseurs local head, Jos?e Roy-Froncioni.

“The 20 countries competing in Banff will be coming here in 2005 so we thought it would be nice to start this year in an international competition and get our young chef to compete at that level.”

The rules the four commis (or junior) chefs faced on Friday in the “black box” competition were fierce ones for any chef, Mrs. Roy-Froncioni said.

“The judging process will be exactly the same as the competitors will see in Alberta, except we had one set of judges per course whereas in Alberta they will have two sets of judges per course. Now today we had a professional chef and a non-professional pair up for each course. .

Meeting early on Friday morning at the Bermuda College’s training kitchen, each of the participants were greeted with a basket of mystery ingredients supplied by Fairmont Southampton Princess. Part of the challenge of the competition comes from the fact that inside the baskets, amongst the top quality spices, pastry items and dry goods was also a selection of meats which the competitors had to use. This year’s participants faced creating a meal with live lobster, Dover sole, beef short ribs and veal sweet breads in only three courses.

In speaking to the participants, it was unanimous that the veal sweet breads and short ribs were the most difficult of the ingredients to work with during their four hours of cooking.

“If there was another course I could have worked it out.,” said John. “I used both the fish in the first course and so I had to use both the meats in the second course.”

He said he was driven close to desperation at one point, asking himself ‘can I even use it as a desert – dip the sweet breads in chocolate sauce’.

Daniel said he was troubled by the short ribs because ideally they should be slow roasted for five hours. But by the time he had them in the oven he had only three and a half hours to finish the job.

But chefs faced even stiffer requirement. Within the first half hour the participants were expected to draw up a menu.

“This is their contract with the judges so if something appears on the plate that did not appear on the menu or vice versa then they would lose points,”Mrs. Roy-Froncioni explained.

“Then they have three and a half hours to produce their appetiser.” she said, with main course needing to be served ten minutes later, and desert ten minutes after that. “If they are not on time, they loose one point per course,” she said.

Altogether each participant was judged out of 100 points. 40 points come from the tasting judges who allocate ten points for originality, ten points for presentation, and 20 points for taste.

“But what is also very important is that throughout their four hours in the kitchen there is also a kitchen judge who will score them out of 50 points for their skills, cleanliness, hygiene and ingredient usage,” she said. “So 50 per cent of their score is taken from the kitchen.”

Finally Mrs. Roy-Froncioni added that she, as president, had “ten points to give to each competitor in looking at the balance of all their dishes and their presentation.”

In this role, she said, she didn’t taste the dishes, but rather looked at how the competitors’ courses weighed up together as a whole – “looking at aesthetics, size of portions, and the dishes overall – just how the dishes work together.”

Turning to the table displaying the competitors’ three courses, she gave a sampling of her judging, pointing out how one competitor committed a no-no by over using rice in her presentation, sprinkling it around her first two courses.

“But the portions are nice,” she said about the same selection. “You won’t be too full by the time you finish.”

One of the judges, La Coquille’s chef Serge Bottelli, said the competition was an encouraging sign for Bermuda’s culinary family:

“The future is here, its good to see competitions like this happen because we can build from there.”

In his judging he said he was especially looking for taste and was not going to be swayed by fancy presentation.

“Because a lot of people are eating with their eyes these days but taste, it seems to be dead,” he said. “When you look at our scoring sheet, to put it one way, the taste is double what the presentation is.

Mr. Bottelli also had some advice for the chefs in the difficult task of preparing the short ribs pointing out that “nobody used a pressure cooker, which were available.

“But these things will come with experience. The next time they won’t make the same mistake twice. We learn with mistakes, usually.”

As the afternoon progressed and points were tallied the tension mounted in the dining room. The competitors stood beside their dishes, but before the winner could be announced the judges gave each participant a critique. One competitor was told that his chilled seafood appetiser seemed to be a bit rushed and veered off what was set on his menu.

Another competitor was bluntly told that her desert had been, to quote on judge, “a disaster”.

Finally the points were counted and Daniel was declared the winner, by what Mrs. Roy-Froncioni said was a slim margin.

But in celebrating his win, Daniel’s thoughts swiftly turned to September’s to the World Commis Chef Competition in Banff Alberta.

“I’m nervous,” he said. “I’m going to be competing against people coming from of a much broader area who get chosen out of the hundreds while we get chosen out of the tens and twenties, so I’m feeling a bit out of my league.”

But in the coming weeks he will be training with the head chef at the Southampton Princess “just to build up some of the skills I’ll need before the competition”.