Antony Worrall Thompson

On the evening of Friday, 4th December, 1987, two hundred guests of the Académie Culinaire de France sat down to a gala dinner at the Méridien Hotel in Piccadilly. It was an occasion I remember well. Earlier in the day, my own chef at the time, Gary Rhodes, and five others had been cooking in the finals of the Meilleur Ouvrier de Grande Bretagne at Slough College. Modelled on its French equivalent, the MOGB is the most exacting test of the creative and professional skills of a chef. To win the title is like receiving a Nobel Prize or joining the SAS.