SERC apprentice at the top of her game in UK Culinary Competition

SERC Higher Level Apprentice in Culinary Arts, Grace Dugan has won the UK-wide Eat Wild Young Chef Competition, held in London last week (6 November 2025).  

Eat Wild promotes the use of wild game in cooking and hosted the contest in collaboration with the Craft Guild of Chefs.   Grace impressed the judges with her venison hotdog with smoked venison heart, and pheasant with lentils. She has won a handcrafted, cast-iron pan, a clay pigeon shooting lesson, and a day in the kitchen with Mark Kempson of Michelin-starred Kitchen W8 in London, followed by dinner for four people.  Mark Kempson is an advocate for cooking with wild food and the connection to nature that this brings.

Grace Dugan was competing against five other young chefs from around the UK.   All six finalists were awarded a three-year membership of the Craft Guild of Chefs, alongside a chef’s jacket and an Eat Wild apron.

Grace, who is 20 and from Belfast, is employed by The Culloden Hotel and has been studying at SERC Bangor Campus for four years, since starting on a Level 3 Diploma in Professional Cookery.

Chef Mark Kempson, announcing the result, commented that there was nothing he would change in Grace’s dishes, and said he hoped she would be able to take up her prize and join him in his restaurant for a day very soon.