Food Hospitality World’s Great Indian Culinary Challenge that had Mumbai’s chefs competing to showcase the best the craft has to offer, now has 8 years of tradition behind it. What started as a way to foster goodwill among chefs has definitely turned competitive over the years, with over a 100 chefs from leading hotels and hotel management institutes participating.

Supported by the Western India Culinary Association, GICC now serves as “a neutral platform away from their place of work where they learn new skills, ideas, trends and bring the chefs together”, one of its founding members, Vernon Coelho said. “We also wanted to foster a spirit of competition and I think we’ve done that over the years.”

The trends the competition has thrown up the past three years, says Coelho, are individual plating of food items as opposed to a platter full of it, smaller portions and healthier cooking.

One of the judges at the event, Vijay Malhotra, Executive Chef, ITC Maratha, Mumbai, said the competition reflects a lot of influence of expat chefs or Indian chefs returning to India and this shows in the use of microgreens and healthy proteins, a trend that’s soon going to catch up with patrons here. Watch the video for a snapshot of the competition.