The Palace Hotel’s Sous Chef Mark Briffa has had an exceptional start to the year, having won the latest in a string of prestigious international culinary awards. This time Mark was representing Malta at the One World Culinary Competition 2008 held in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan in the Russian Federation.

Mark Briffa won the Bronze Award for cooking a 3-course meal for 6 persons in 4 hours without prior preparation. He also won the Media Award for the most interesting and well-presented dishes during the master class session of typical local cuisine.

Only recently, at the Cyprus Culinary Competition held in March, Mark won the Gold Medal for the Senior Chicken Dish and received Bronze for the Senior Lamb Dish. He also won the Silver Medal in the Senior Gran Prix competition together with the Grand Prix Team members of the Malta Culinary Association representing Malta. Earlier, in February, representing The Palace, Mark won the Gold Award for Senior Lamb Dish and the Gold for Best in Class as part of The Palace team at the Mediterranean Food & Drink Festival organised by the Malta Culinary Association. In January, Mark also won the prestigious Gold Award for Decorated Cake at the Istanbul Festival de Gastronomie held in Istanbul, Turkey. Previously, Mark Briffa received the award for Merit in the Senior Decorated Celebration Cake at Malta Kulinarja, the Biannual Cookery and Culinary Arts Championship organised by the Malta cookery and Food Association.

One World was created two years ago by Mr Bill Gallagher, Life President of the World Association of Cooks Society (WACS), and the Director of Northern Europe of WACS, Mr. Gissur Gidmunsson. Its main aim is to bring chefs together from all over the world to cook the identical ingredients provided yet each in their own traditional way.

In this year’s event eight countries took part, China, Guatemala, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Serbia and Ukraine. The host country Russia does not participate.

Each country was represented by a competing chef and a culinary judge – Mark Briffa Sous Chef at The Palace Hotel in Sliema, while the judge representing Malta was Joseph Vella founder and director of chefmalta.com. The judging panel was directed by Mr. Gidmunsson himself.