Masterchef winner set to dazzle at Strathpeffer 'Dinner with the Stars'
LOVERS of fine food are in for a treat when a top chef visits Ross-shire for a very special evening.
Mental health charity Birchwood Highland has secured the services of Gary Maclean, this year’s winner of Masterchef: The Professionals, to cook at a glittering dinner in Strathpeffer Pavilion in May.
The fundraiser, which sold out last year, is being held to mark Birchwood’s 30th anniversary celebrations.
Gary will create the main dish for the Dinner With The Stars event on May 19.
He’ll be joined by top class chefs from around the Highlands, who will each be in charge of the starter and dessert. Great entertainment and a gala auction are also promised for those who attend.
Pauline Burnett, Birchwood Highland’s fundraising manager, said: “We wanted someone extra special for our 30th anniversary celebrations and we’re thrilled to have the hottest star chef in Scotland coming our way.
“The event will mark the support we have given to people experiencing mental ill health across the region and raise funds for our vital work in the Highlands.”
Gary is senior chef lecturer at the City of Glasgow College and decided to enter Masterchef: The Professionals because of his love for the show.
Almost four million viewers watched him take the title.
He defeated rivals Elly Wentworth, 24, and Matt Healy, 33, in a tense final in which he designed and prepared a Michelin-standard dish for 28 Michelin-starred chefs and travelled to Oslo, Norway, to cook at renowned restaurant Maaemo to learn from three Michelin-starred chef, Esben Holmboe Bang.
Maclean’s winning menu was made up of a razor clams starter, a Highland roe deer main course and a chocolate pistachio ganache pudding.
Two Michelin-starred chef Wareing hailed the starter as “the best razor clam dish I’ve ever eaten”, adding that it “could come from any three Michelin-starred restaurant in Europe”.
Birchwood Highland is the region’s leading mental health charity and not-for-profit organisation.
It cites figures to show that one in three Highlanders will experience mental ill health in the coming year. Birchwood Highland celebrates its 30th year of supporting people across the Highlands this year, with a year-long programme of events under the Birchwood Highland’s Year of Happiness theme.
The organisation owns and manages Scotland’s only mental health residential recovery centre based in Inverness where up to 23 people at a time re-learn key skills and regain confidence and self-belief as they engage in their own recovery.
The charity also runs supported housing in Inverness and has Community Support Services in Inverness, Easter Ross and Lochaber, supporting people in their own homes to live independently.
It provides over 50,000 hours of support each year.
Birchwood has also recently enjoyed excellent reports for its work in the Highlands from the Care Inspectorate.
For tickets, priced £45, call Veronica on 01463 236 507. Tickets are available for individuals or for groups of up to 10. Transport to and from Inverness will be available.
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