Craft Guild names its 2026 Graduate Award winners

The Craft Guild of Chefs has named eight winners of its 2026 Graduate Awards, drawing from kitchens as different as the Royal Household, the Royal Air Force and the House of Commons.

Five chefs took the Kitchen Graduate Award: Tommy Randle of Rogan & Co, Sergio Purves of the House of Commons, and Lauren Fitzsimmons and Evie Smithson, both of the Royal Household. Joe Timmons, who cooks for the Royal Air Force, was named highest achiever in the category.

Three more took the Pastry Graduate Award: Liam Jackson Jones of Harrods, Nataliia Pantykina of Sodexo at Newcastle United, and Marli Carter of 1 Hotel Mayfair, named highest achiever.

Three of the eight winners cook outside restaurants entirely — Parliament, the Royal Household, the RAF.

Getting to a Graduate Award takes months. Candidates sit a multiple-choice exam, then move through practical kitchen and pastry challenges that test technique, creativity and consistency under time pressure. Finalists also spend two days in Hampshire over the summer on mentoring sessions with working chefs and visits to local suppliers.

A quarter-century tracking young talent

The Graduate Awards have run since 2002, and the Guild says more than 100 chefs have gone through the programme. Steve Munkley MBE, the Guild's founder and vice-president, pointed to this year's spread of workplaces — "the breadth of sectors represented" among the winners, spanning the military, contract catering, hotels, restaurants and the Royal Household.

Sally Abé chaired the Kitchen Graduate Award for the first time this year. Two mentors, Brian Hennessy and Wallace Li of 1 Hotel Mayfair, were separately recognised for their work with finalists Elizabeth Williams and Marli Carter.

Public-sector kitchens on the podium

Three of the eight winners work outside restaurants entirely — in Parliament's kitchens, in the Royal Household, and in the RAF's catering corps — sectors that rarely appear in chef awards built around restaurant tasting menus.

That mix reflects who enters. The Graduate Award is open to any chef under a set age working in a professional kitchen, restaurant or not, on the same logic as Germany's CHEF:IN Awards: recognise the kitchen work that rarely gets a review.

None of this year's eight has opened a restaurant under their own name. The award is built for chefs mid-career, not headline acts — their names tend to surface later, in kitchens most diners never think to ask about.