As a child growing up in a south Indian village, head chef Vasathan Navamani enjoyed making wooden carvings. After studying hotel management, he found himself with a knife in his hand again, in the kitchens of the Taj hotel in Chennai. Vasathan and his friends continually tried to outdo each other by creating ever more elaborate centrepieces for buffet displays, made out of vegetables, butter, sugar and bread.
BEST WESTERN PLUS Maldron Hotel is less formal, but Vasathan still makes food sculptures in his spare time, and – without his friends to compete with – now enters them in contests. He has won the gold award at Hotelympia’s ‘Salon Culinaire de Londres’ three times, including for a model of his childhood village made in flour, salt and gelatine, showing people and animals living together in harmony. ‘I know about snakes, cattle, insects, elephants. But that’s all different now, even in a generation.’ Check out the video below to see Vasathan in action and his very own Welsh Dragon.