Colour scheme
"It is my favourite task of the year," enthuses Egon Ronay, referring to the organisation of the annual Grand Prix of Gastronomy Dinner which took place at London's Four Seasons hotel last month.
Four noteworthy chefs and their respective brigades each cooked a four-course dinner from their repertoire for 200 guests. Two of the visiting chefs hail from London - Gary Rhodes of the Greenhouse and Michel Roux, fils, of Le Gavroche. John Burton-Race of L'Ortolan, Berkshire, and Renato Piccolotto of hotel Cipriani in Venice completed the evening's formidable foursome.
But there's nothing unusual in that, you say: guest chef sessions are ten-a-penny these days. However, this was a dinner with a difference.
The various courses cooked by any particular chef were not served in sequence as a complete menu. Instead, each chef's dishes were mixed with the others' to make a complete menu.
Diners got a taste of four different styles of food; and the chefs got the opportunity to see other brigades in action, as did the host chefs, Jean-Christophe Novelli and Eric Deblonde.
For front of house staff, though, the mixing and matching of the different courses to different tables presented a potential nightmare.
But Ronay reveals there were no disasters on the night, thanks to a clever colour-coding system. Instead of just being allocated to particular tables, waiting staff took their cue from following one of the colours that was given to each of the four different menus. This way, waiter X was able to easily identify dish Y from the section of the kitchen where chef Z was working.
Surely bringing four teams of chefs and their respective menus together can't be that simple? "Believe me, it's not," says Ronay. "While the idea is simple and it would be fairly easy to co-ordinate, I suggest few could do it well.
"You have to know the chefs, their cooking, and the particular dishes to make each of the menus, where the respective courses come from a different chef, work."
"Menu planning is always a question of balance. But without organising a pre-dinner tasting, you have to know the flavour of the individual dishes to achieve a well integrated menu that makes sense."
As president of the British Academy of Gastronomes it falls to Ronay to organise its annual dinner. He explains the non-profit making association was set up over a decade ago to improve standards of food in this country - at all levels of consumption.
The dinner is the platform for awarding its annual Grand Prix of Gastronomy trophy to a champion who, in the opinion of its 60 members, has achieved the most to further the cause of gastronomy. Fishery scientist Dr Mike Holden was this year's recipient for his campaigning work to preserve European fish stocks.
Previous winners have included the Association of Specialist Cheesemakers and highland farmer Stewart Macphie for flying the flag for top-class beef by developing a 150-strong pure-bred Aberdeen Angus herd.
