The Westin Dragonara’s chefs were demonstrating their skills and experience at this year’s  Malta Kulinarja, Cookery and Culinary Arts Championships which was held between 14 and 17 November at the Bay Arena in St George's Bay.

Across the competition, monitored and evaluated by an international panel of judges, the Westin Dragonara team won 14 awards including three gold as well as one silver trophy and one best in class silver award. The chef team was made up of David Calleja, Horace Micallef, Ryan Sell,  Reuben Vella and Julian Buttigieg, led by executive chef James Mifsud.

Apart from the Maltese participants, namely the Westin Dragonara Resort, the Excelsior Grand Hotel, the Hilton Malta, the InterContinental Hotel, the Radisson Blu Resort, the Seabank Hotel, Xara Palace, the Chop House and Maypole, the Malta Kulinarja Cookery and Culinary Arts Championships also welcomed foreign participants from Azerbaijan, Greece, Cyprus, Hungary and Romania.

The Malta Kulinarja Cookery and Culinary Arts Championships, organised by the Malta Chefs Society is a bi-annual event in which trainees, kitchen artists and chefs, from some of Malta's top restaurants and hotels demonstrate their gained skills in specific categories. Besides bringing together chefs and other professionals, working, studying, or otherwise active in the catering industry, the aim of the Malta Chef's Society is to stimulate greater interest and create higher standards in the culinary sector in order to help them further their knowledge and skills and directly contribute towards the improvement in the quality and standards of the tourism industry in Malta and Gozo.