Pickled Onion executive chef Steve Marston was crowned king of local cuisine at the Bermuda Culinary Arts Festival on Sunday night when the winner of the Escoffier Cup was finally announced after two months of cook-offs.

Mr. Marston?s opposition was Paul Jurt from the Fairmont Southampton Newport Room. They had 45 minutes to complete a dish, and five extra minutes to arrange it on a plate for the three judges to taste. Mr. Marston made a complex dish simply called Beef Tenderloin. It involved, among other things shrimp tempura and the wedding of vegetable mousses.

Mr. Marston said on Monday morning that the win ?was a little bit of a surprise.?

He was on his way to play a round of golf ? a Festival event.

?I had about eleven elements in my dish,? he said. ?What they wanted was complexity, and they wanted diversity, and because of who I am, and being at the Pickled Onion I wanted to marry traditional with modern.

?That is why I had the potato with the pomme anna ? a traditional French potato cake. On the other side of the plate I had a coleslaw which is a modern idea.

?It was fresh with apples and celery to add a lot of bite as well as colour. I had the shrimp tempura. There were so many different elements.?

Mr. Marston said he thought Paul Jurt was a tremendous guy and a great chef. ?The crowd was definitely cheering for him,? said Mr. Marston. ?The judges told me that I won, because my dish had more nutritional value than his did. The judges were looking for complexity and nutrition. They said mine was better balanced.?

He said he was thrilled to get to hug actress Sigourney Weaver at the Festival Gala Dinner on Sunday evening. ?She is a wonderful person,? he said. ?She had a great sense of humour.?

Mr. Marston?s prize includes a trophy and an all expenses paid trip to the world?s most prestigious cooking competition the Bocuse D?Or in France. ?I am most definitely looking forward to going to the Bocuse D?Or,? he said.

The purpose of the Escoffier Cup competition is to continually raise the standards of local cooking. It also promotes camaraderie amongst the chefs, professionalism and offers new educational opportunities.

For the audience, the earlier rounds of the competition were probably more fun, as audiences were smaller, and they actually had the opportunity to sample the food.

Being at the final round was delicious torture for foodies who were able to smell and to see, but sadly, not to taste. It was also a little frustrating because the actual name of the winner of the Escoffier Cup and all the winners of all the other competitions were only released on Sunday night for the lucky ones who got to go to the Gala Dinner hosted by actress Sigourney Weaver.

To raise the bar even higher, the Festival flew in Chef Fritz Sonnenschmidt to lead the judging panel. He is one of the foremost culinary judges in the world and recently judged the Culinary Olympics in Germany.

During the competition the judges stood to the side dressed in white lab coats and clutching clipboards. Every move of the chef, particularly his sanitary habits while cooking, was duly noted. The chefs were also expected to stay exactly within the recipes they submitted to the judges before the competition. If they skipped or added ingredients, points were taken off. If the chef added a garnish, it had to be edible and it also had to be an integral part of the dish.

Stephan Juliusburger of Syntuitive, one of the organisers of the Festival, gave the commentary. ?These are the two mousses but they are not being married yet,? he said. ?Steve believes in a proper relationship before marriage.?

With the microphone turned up high every crackle of oil, chop and shuffle is amplified. There was also a special video-feed so the audience could have a bird?s-eye view of the cooking pots.

Of Mr. Marston?s technique, Mr. Juliusburger said it was unique because Mr. Marston didn?t like the audience to see the main dish until near the end of the cooking session.

The competition was a learning experience for many audience members. During the competition Mr. Juliusburger tossed out random bits of cooking trivia like potatoes were first grown by Peruvians in South America; onions have lots of natural sugars which makes them good for comfits; an aioli is a kind of mayonnaise; chanterelle mushrooms are gathered in the fall and are also called Trumpet mushrooms.

Since the Escoffier Cup began in October, the Bermuda Culinary Arts Festival organisers have received a lot of interest from local chefs. Next year they may start the competition with as many as 35 competitors.

During the festival there were a number of other cooking competitions including a fish chowder cook-off and a junior competition.

?Juniors did a cold food competition where they made the canapes,? said Mr. Juliusburger. ?The scoring for that one was very tight.?

As the clock ticked on, Mr. Marston?s forehead was creased in concentration. He talked little with the audience. To make his tempura, he poured Perrier spring water into the batter.

?He uses natural sparkling water for the tempura,? Mr. Juliusburger explained. ?The bubbles give it a lighter texture as opposed to still water.?

He also worked on his vegetable mousse and squash ribbons. ?Here comes the marriage we?ve been waiting for,? said Mr. Juliusburger. ?The parsnip and carrot mousses are now married.?

With thirty seconds left on the clock Mr. Marston was still chopping chives, but he finished, miraculously it seemed, with ten seconds to spare.

For Paul Jurt it was a home game, and the fans, particularly the chefs in the crowd were cheering hard for him.

At 24, he was probably one of the youngest competitors. He is Swiss and came to Bermuda last year. Because he does not speak English well, he elected to have a friend explain what he was doing, while he concentrated on his cooking. He has been cooking since he was 12.

His entry was a seared black Sambuca tenderloin with celeriac truffle foam, pomme bolongere and balsamic sauce.

As he began working on his meat, Mr. Juliusburger told the crowd: ?Paul starts with his fabrication, because he wants to get it out of the way quickly.?

He also said that Mr. Jurt aimed to keep the elements of his dish carefully separated.

?The separation of food and flavour is in keeping with modern thought,? said Mr. Juliusburger. ?At one time, all the items of a dish would be piled on top of one another, but styles change in food presentation.?

Mr. Jurt?s presentation was full of visual tricks.

Using a ribbon cutter, a Japanese invention, he cut long noodlelike strands of potato. These were popped into beat juice. When he pulled out the bright red strands later in his presentation, it was like a magic trick.

He wound the potato strands around metal canisters and then fried them in hot oil, to make tiny red potato baskets.

He also made celeriac foam by injecting nitrous oxide into a celery concoction.

As Mr. Jurt carefully crafted another piece of his entry, it was obvious that he had an eye for detail.

?He is making an intricate bolongere,? Mr. Juliusburger explained.

As he finished with his celeriac foam, there was a tremendous round of cheering and applause from the watching chef crowd, and it was obvious who they thought had one the night.