Chester Flagship hotel chef to compete in The Global Chefs Challenge #Meet the Chef
Victoria Hayes
18th May 2022
Sam Griffiths, Senior Sous chef at Chester’s Grosvenor Hotel is having quite the year.
Not only is getting married to his fiancée Bryony on May 23rd, he is also zipping off to Abu Dhabi to represent Wales at a prestigious competition to find the world’s best chef.
The Global Chefs Challenge is where the world’s top chefs meet to compete in three competition categories: the Global Chefs Challenge, the Global Pastry Chefs Challenge, and the Global Young Chefs Challenge.
Selected through top performance at the Culinary World Cup and the Worldchefs Regional Semi-Finals, qualifying teams go head to head at the Global Chef Challenge Final. Here, the best and brightest convene to show mastery in the culinary arts.
The Global Chefs Challenge Final will be held at Worldchefs Congress & Expo in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, from 30 May to 2 June 2022.
Sam, who lives in Saltney won the National Chef of Wales competition in 2020 will be competing in the Global Chefs Challenge category, where the best chefs in the world compete to show their skills in the kitchen and their adaptability under fire. 
Their culinary creations must follow guidelines such as being appetizing and tasteful, while also showing off exemplary plating for ease of service. The Global Chefs Challenge finalists must include certain ingredients in the four dishes. He will have five hours to prepare and cook 12 of each dish, which must be identical.
“It’s a big competition”, says Sam, “and there will be a lot of pressure, but I have been asked to represent Wales and I am going to give it 100 per cent. I am a proud Welshman and this is the type of competition you hope to do when you become a chef.
His menu opens with Szechuan baked pineapple, chilli, hazelnut and Koppertcress, followed by butter roasted halibut, whey, mussels and nori seaweed
Main course is fillet, neck and sweetbread of veal, black garlic, eryngi mushroom and poached oyster and dessert is Bahibe 46% chocolate, clementine, bergamot and Dilmah Italian almond.
The eagle eyed among you will have noticed that the final date is very close to the previously mentioned wedding day of Chef Sam and his fiancée Bryony. In fact, Sam is cutting his honeymoon short in order to compete, but don’t worry, his bride to be completely supports him…”Bryony actually told me that I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t do the competition,” said Sam.
So with a supportive wife, and a place in the final of a high profile international competition what more could Sam need to put a smile on his face?
How about a supportive team behind him?
Richard Grove, General Manager, The Chester Grosvenor said, “we are all incredibly proud of what Sam has achieved to date and we wish him the all the best, not only for the competition final in Abu-Dhabi, but also his upcoming wedding ”.
Plus…The Culinary Association of Wales’ newly appointed culinary director Graham Tinsley, MBE, executive chef at sous chef at Carden Park Hotel and Spa, near Chester, will be supporting both Sam and Harry Paynter-Roberts, 24, who cooks for Wales in the Global Young Chefs Challenge finalist, in Abu Dhabi.
We wish Sam all the best in the competition too and we can’t wait to hear all about it.
Private: The Vines at Carden
Carden Park Hotel, Broxton Road, Cheshire, CH3 9DQ
The Vines at Carden is a gourmet restaurant development at Carden Park Hotel, offering exquisite dining and an extensive list of fine wines in an elegant evening atmosphere.