IT’S official – a Hale chef cooks the ‘nicest looking food’ in the North West.

Chef Jeff Green, of Earle by Simon Rimmer, has been crowned overall winner of the 2016 North West Food Porn Awards.

Jeff, who has worked at the Cecil Road restaurant for the past seven months, clinched first place in the Fine Dining 2016 category after impressing judges with his ‘mouth-watering’ pan seared scallop, pea puree, ham hock spring roll and pork crackling dish.

“I was surprised, I didn’t expect to win,” said Jeff. “It’s a nice thing to be involved in and the pictures of the food look great. It makes everything worthwhile.”

Messenger Newspapers:

Award-winning chef Jeff Green with fellow chef and colleague Billy Jones

After getting through the preliminary stages, Jeff went head-to-head with other finalists at a cook-off in Manchester and was given just two hours to complete the cooking and a photography session. This stage saw finalists working with the team from Manchester-based food photographers, stmphotouk.com, to capture their culinary creations.

A professional judging panel had been assembled from a wide range of backgrounds, from chefs, through food journalists, designers and stylists.

Messenger Newspapers:

Jeff's winning dish

Large prints of the chef’s creations, taken at the cook-off, were presented to the judging panel in February, to decide on the overall winners. The images were on display at the Food Porn 2016 exhibition as part of NRB 2016.

Oliver Zebedee-Howard, creative director at Shoot the Moon and one of the judges for the Food Porn Awards, said: “It’s such an exciting time for the North West food industry; seeing all the incredible dishes oozing with creativity, has been amazing. The judging stage was great fun and the standards were exceptionally high.

“Huge congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone who took part.”