After two days of fine food, spirited cooking demonstrations and flowing wines, Bermuda’s Gourmet Getaway wrapped up on Sunday night with a gala dinner in Fairmont Southampton’s Poinciana Ballroom.

It was a formal affair hosted by celebrity chef Bobby Flay — known to many from his cooking shows as well as his excellent New York City restaurants Mesa Grill, Bolo and Bar Americain.

Guests — which included both local and visiting chefs, other restaurant staff, supporters of Escoffier Cup competitors, tourists and just plan foodies — were welcomed with a glass of prosecco on arrival.

And delicious canapés were soon circulating the room carried by impeccable wait staff.

Red pepper gazpacho with goat cheese, paté on toast, scallops, quails eggs, and more taste teasers built anticipation for the culinary wonders to come while quietening impatient stomachs.

The room was abuzz with speculation over which of the four chefs competing for the Escoffier Cup — Vijayakumar Velayudhan (Sea Horse Grill), Beat Muller (Newport Room), Terry Clark (Sea Horse Grill) or Gerry Adams — would claim the prize.

After a very busy weekend of hosting, Chef Flay took a low key approach to his gala duties.

Having come to the Island with his wife, actor Stephanie March (Law & Order), Mr. Flay said they had had “the most unbelievable weekend”.

He said that cooking demonstrations and Escoffier Cup competition that had taken place in the Viking Village during the festival were all “terrific” and suggested some of those dishes might be seen again soon.

“Those dishes will absolutely appear when I cook on Iron Chef America,” he said.

Mainly, however, Mr. Flay then largely let the five-course, wine-paired meal speak for itself. Each course was prepared by a different chef.

First up was Serge Bottelli (Broadway Bistro) with sesame oil and ginger-flavoured tuna tartar along with shiso cress, roasted cauliflower gazpacho with American stugeon caviar cream. This was paired with a very nice, fruity Groth Sauvignon Blanc 2005 from the Napa Valley which complemented it very well.

The ginger flavour in the tuna tartar, however, was not strong enough and was disappointingly lost among the other ingredients.

This was followed by an offering from Jean-Louis Gerin — a US-based French chef who in 2006 won the James Beard Foundation award for “best chef of the northeast”.

Chef Gerin said he had fiddled with his treatment of vegetable crumble with spiny lobster remoulade, poppyseed vinaigrette and geranium crouton to give it a more Bermudian flair by flavouring the sauce to resemble fish chowder.

This dish was difficult to judge and most of the people at my table were less than pleased with it. When all the flavours were mixed into one bite, it did taste interesting and exotic but smaller bites were less satisfying. The 2004 Russian River Ranches Chardonnay was a nice complement but this was my least favourite dish.

It was at about this time in the proceedings that the wait staff starting sweeping up half finished wine glasses as the next wines were being poured.

This did not go over well at my table and we had to protest several times to save the wines we were enjoying so much.

New York-based Chef Katy Sparks, who was once named one of “ten best new chefs in America” by Food & Wine magazine, dazzled with her seared hamachi (yellowtail) with pickled shiitake mushrooms on a French lentil ragout with spice roasted mango and mirin glazed baby bok choy.

This was my favourite dish and I would order it again if only I could. It was paired with a 2004 Hartford Pinot Noir.

Despite the wide popularity the movie “Sideways” has won Pinot Noirs, it rarely interests my palate. Nevertheless my table fought with the waiters to keep it around.

The main course for the evening was prepared by Alexander Smalls — who has been a successful opera singer as well as restauranteur.

Chef Smalls served up spicy sugar glazed lamb with crispy okra garnish and sweet potato risotto cakes.

I wish that I had had enough appetite left to better to savour this dish. The lamb was perfectly executed and I could not get enough of the sweet potato risotto cakes.

Unfortunately, all the lovely canapés were catching up with me.

The lamb was paired with my favourite new wine from the weekend — Paraduxx 2003 from Robert Mondavi.

This Zinfandel-Cabernet Sauvignon blend is supplemented with Merlot and Cabernet Franc and intended to offer a distinctly Californian flavour.

It pairs very nicely with lamb and is easy to drink with berry undertones and balanced oak. I fully intend to pick up a bottle and soon.

The final course — dessert — was prepared by Jean-Claude Garzia of Lemon Tree.

He offered fresh raspberry and pine nuts tart, chilled nougat glace with caramel and pineapple sauce served with a glass of Rosa Regale 2005.

This dish arrived looking beautiful and did not fail on taste. The chilled nougat glace was very light and complemented the tart very nicely.

Meanwhile the light, summery Rosa Regale was a nice way to finish the meal as it has very clean finish and feels refreshing.

The taste parade may have been over, however, there were still a slew of awards to make from the various Gourmet Getaway competitions.

In the Fish Chowder competitions Marilyn Eve won the Outerbridge’s Cup for the amateur category while Gosling’s Cup in the professional category went to Chris Malpas of Butterfield Bank.

In the People’s Choice Challenge, in which some 17 local restaurants competed, Cafe Gio picked up two titles in the Casual Dining segment — Best Service and Best Overall while La Trattoria won for Best Food.

Newport Room then made a clean sweep of the Fine Dining category — taking the awards for Best Food, Best Service and Best Overall.

All four of the Escoffier competitors were brought to the stage for the announcement of who would take the Cup — which went to Terry Clark of Sea Horse Grill.