CELEBRITY chef and restaurateur Aldo Zilli will put finalists through their paces in the Scottish Italian Awards.
Excitement is building around the second year of the contest, which has added extra categories, a bigger venue and the chance for winners to compete in a brand new UK-wide final.
Event organiser Warren Paul explained: "We're delighted that Aldo Zilli has come on board as part of the judging panel. He is a very well-known name and a fantastic chef, so it's great to have his support."
Aldo will judge the best pizza restaurant and best chef categories, putting the finalists in the latter through a "Hell's Kitchen" scenario before announcing the winner.
Mr Paul added: "Last year the chefs got to cook for the judges in their own surroundings - this time, we are taking them out of their comfort zones and asking them to recreate one of Aldo's dishes in front of him at the Cook School in Ayrshire.
"It's a fantastic opportunity for them - but it will be nerve-wracking."
The success of the Scottish Italian Awards - a capacity audience of 630 people attended last year's final - has prompted organisers to branch out further afield.
The first ever English Italian Awards will be launched in Manchester next spring.
Mr Paul said: "Our aim is to invite some of the Scottish finalists to compete against the English winners, with the aim of being crowned British Italian champions. It's a fantastic incentive for businesses to take part this year."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article