It is the silence that strikes you.

A vast room sparsely dotted with six desks occupied by an equal number of serious-looking young chefs, all staring intently at their cookbooks while being scrutinised by a terrifying line-up of the UK's most powerful chefs-turned-judges: Michel Roux, Albert Roux, Alain Roux, Michel Roux Jr, Andrew Fairlie, Gary Rhodes, James Martin, Angela Hartnett and Brian Turner besides David Nicholls, director of food at a top London hotel.

Wearing pristine chef's whites: Scott Dineen of Goldman Sachs, London; Daniel Lee of JP Morgan, London; Gavin Edney of Cliveden House, Berkshire; Richard Pascoe of the Feversham Arms Hotel, Helmsley, North Yorkshire; Sabrina Gidda of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, London; and - the one I'm here to see - Glasgow-born Ian Scaramuzza, head chef of the two Michelin-starred Hibiscus restaurant in Mayfair, are all studiously reading their heavy Escoffier and Larousse cookbooks and frantically taking notes, some using calculators. They've got 30 minutes to create a recipe from a "mystery" list of ingredients they've just been handed. It's for a turban of sole and salmon a la mariniere, created by the Roux family and inspired by Escoffier, the French chef who lionised his country's cooking methods. It's difficult to achieve this technically complex dish, yet they have only been given the bare bones: there are no timings or techniques given, only measurements. Let's just say they have to line a savarin mould with sole fillets, fill the mould with a sorrel-flavoured salmon mousse, cook the lot in the oven in a bain marie, then demould it on to a serving dish, garnish the hollow with mussels and prawns a la mariniere, then serve separately Puy green lentils prepared to each chef's taste. Quantities can be altered and ingredients omitted; the only compulsory element is that one whole black truffle is to be used.

Gazing upon the rare spectacle of chefs sitting down and writing is enough to give me the heebie-jeebies, as it reminds me of dreaded university exams. Nobody is allowed to talk or walk about. But every so often you hear a burst of laughter as the judges joke among themselves, mostly in French, presumably to help put their proteges at ease.

It's 11am and we are at London's Westminster Kingsway College, and it's the first half-hour of the three-hour final of the 2015 Roux Scholarship, the toughest culinary competition for chefs aged under 30 in the UK, and ranked among the most prestigious in the world. The six here were chosen from 18 regional finalists out of a record 150 entries. Scaramuzza is the only Scot.

Once they've worked out their cooking schedules, the next step is the cook-off, which takes place in the large professional kitchen next door. As a mere observer I've been warned not to attempt to speak to any of the finalists, far less bother the judges. As if. I'm happy to watch from a relative distance and even happier to discover that Scaramuzza's cooking station is the closest to where I am standing. I see him as he reacts to the different stages of pressure, and his eventual exhaustion; but I'm also struck by his absolute calm and control of the situation, even as he knows he's being watched and asked questions by the judges. I see him counting his timings, remembering his schedule as he skins, cuts, cooks and chills his fresh ingredients (I never knew it could take so long to skin and fillet four whole Dover sole). The finalists are given start and finish times roughly 10 minutes apart. Scaramuzza is number four, which means he must finish by 2.25pm, after the first three and before the last two contestants.

I'm told the norm is for at least one contestant to panic and lose it in the last five minutes, ruining their chances of winning. However, the standard being so high this year, I don't witness any of that.

As it turns out Scaramuzza is the only one of the six to submit his finished dish three minutes early - a huge plus, I'm told - and I get to see it briefly at the pass before it's whisked into the judges' room to be assessed for presentation, adherence to the recipe, technique but above all taste and flavour. They all look good, though some better than others.

Herald readers will already know that Scaramuzza, who was born in Maryhill and is the son of a Glasgow school dinner lady, won this year's Roux Scholarship. This makes him only the second Scot to become a Roux Scholar in nearly 32 years of the competition: Andrew Fairlie, whose restaurant at the Gleneagles Hotel has two Michelin stars, was the first to win in 1986. Darin Campbell, currently head chef at Chez Roux restaurant at Cromlix Hotel near Dunblane, is the only other Scot to have reached the final.

For the moment, though, I'm observing the cook-off, chatting to the judges and waiting to interview Scaramuzza after the competition ends; nobody yet knows who's won. That bombshell is only announced later that same day, by all four members of the Roux family of chefs at a ceremony at the Mandarin Oriental hotel attended by all of the judges, other high-profile chefs, London-based food writers and staff from the finalists' restaurants.

It's clear from the buzz around this A-list event that the Roux Scholarship is the holy grail of the foodie world.

In the hours leading up to that final moment, the tension is palpable, and before you can stop it the question keeps flashing through your mind: why on earth would any young person willingly put themselves through this stress? The answer, of course, comes as swiftly as the question. The kudos. The £6,000 cheque. And the chance to spend three months at any three Michelin-starred restaurant in the world - all expenses paid. To any young chef with passion in their belly, this is the clincher because it's a rare chance to learn more, develop skills, progress ideas and generally up the ante in terms of becoming a world-class chef with a place of your own. Winning is a life-changing event.

And yet so few chefs working in Scotland apply. Even if they do enter, the standard of cooking often isn't good enough to get past the first stage. Can anybody tell me why is this so?

The Roux family could have invented the term "mentoring". Albert actively seeks out Scottish talent for his Chez Roux restaurants in Lochinver, Inverness, Gullane and Dunblane, and Fairlie is renowned for nurturing his proteges; both Campbell and Scaramuzza have worked with him.

Head chefs and proprietors should encourage young chefs to prepare for and enter competitions like this one because, like it or not, you have to put yourself out there in order to be noticed. And there's nothing wrong with aiming for the top.

So, Scotland: bin the culinary cringe and please start making more of a noise.