Tilda Chef Team of the Year 2026

Celebrating the winners of Tilda Chef Team of the Year 2026, in association with the Craft Guild of Chefs, as part of HRC’s Salon Culinaire.

This year, it was all about the power of performance on the plate. Food as fuel. Food as medicine. Food as inspiration.

Seven chef teams from across the UK were challenged to create a two-course menu using Tilda rice as the key ingredient. Each menu was designed to fuel a sportsperson, supporting both performance and recovery, and showcasing how food can be both functional and full of flavour.

Judges scored each dish on its nutritional impact, use of Tilda rice, alongside taste, flavour and presentation.

2026 contestants included
Fooditude Ltd
Vacherin
ESS
Compass
Sodexo

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2026 Best In Class

Following an intense live cook-off, this year’s Tilda Chef Team of the Year winners, Michael Broad and Elizabeth Mackenzie from Fooditude Ltd, impressed judges with a menu that balanced creativity, flavour and performance-led nutrition.

Reflecting on the experience, the duo described the competition as “exhilarating, stressful, but really good fun,” highlighting both the intensity of the live environment and the enjoyment of working with high-quality ingredients. With a clear focus on the brief, they created dishes that combined bold, fresh flavours with functional nutrition. “We wanted to make sure the dishes really fit the brief, combining performance-focused nutrition with bold, fresh flavours.”

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The Winning Menu

The winning duo delivered a vibrant, texture-led menu that celebrated rice in both its classic and more unexpected forms. Their main course paired wild rice with a crispy basmati tostada and fresh trout ceviche, creating a dish that was light, balanced and full of contrast.
“We used basmati for its performance benefits and wild rice for texture, crisping it up to add something you don’t often see.”

For dessert, coconut rice arancini was combined with caramelised pineapple and passionfruit cream, bringing together indulgence and freshness. Together, the dishes showed how performance-led cooking can still deliver on flavour, creativity and genuine enjoyment.