Sri Lanka’s premier beach resort Heritance Ahungalla, emerged as the Most Outstanding Hotel Team in Sri Lanka for the third consecutive time after competing against 2500 participants from both international and domestic star-class city and resort hotels at the 16th Culinary Art Competition which concluded recently.

Heritance Hotels dominated the competition with Heritance Kandalama being adjudged the Best Culinary Team and Most Outstanding Regional Team at the competition.

Organized by the Chefs Guild of Sri Lanka, the culinary competition is part of the industry’s largest food and trade exhibition. Thirty judges from the World Association of Chefs Societies (WAS) officiated at the event. WAS consists of over 10 million chef members from over 91 countries.

Maintaining its reputation for offering the best cuisine in the country, Aitken Spence Hotels won 113 medals i ncluding 28 Gold medals which included 5 Excellence Gold medals and the prestigious award for the Most Culinary Team in Sri Lanka.

There were 24 categories for the medals and the Aitken Spence Hotels medal tally displayed the sheer dominance the resort chain’s chefs had over its competitors in the field. Chef Lalith Gunasekera, Consultant Chef/General Manager, Aitken Spence Hotels and Heritance Hotels who led the team along with Chef R J Hassim, Corporate Chef, Aitken Spence Hotels and Heritance Hotels and Chef Kasun Premachandra, Executive Chef, Heritance Ahungalla whose continuous training and motivation guided the participants, were jubilant along with the teams from Aitken Spence Hotels who collectively won 13 special awards out of a total of 29 special awards.

The special awards included the following: Best Pastry Chef – Chef Jagath Wjesundara, Heritance Ahungalla, Best Bartender Mixologist & Best Beer CocktailMr. Praveen Sampath Fernando, Heritance Ahungalla, Most Outstanding Apprentice – Chef M R D Fernando, Heritance Kandalama, Most Outstanding Artistic Show Piece – Chef Anil Gunawardane, Heritance Kandalama, Best Plated Appetizer – Chef Manoj Peiris, Heritance Ahungalla, Best Dessert Apprentice – Chef Kaveendra Heshan Balathanthri, Heritance Ahungalla, Best 5 Course Dinner – Chef H H K D Dayananda, Heritance Ahungalla, Best Mocktail – Lasitha Lakmini, Heritance Ahungalla, Best High Tea – Mandakini & Dharmasena, Heritance Kandalama, Best Cu l i n a r y Te a m and Most Outstanding Regional Team – Heritance Kandalama, Most Outstanding Hotel – Heritance Ahungalla.