Kitchen Hero of the Year impresses at awards

A new award for Caterer Middle East, the Kitchen Hero award, sponsored by A Ronai & Steelite, was designed to recognise the effort and commitment of an individual to team play and quality.

The inaugural winner, Ziyad Hejamady, head steward Hilton Dubai, Jumeirah, beat off stiff competition last night from a number of high-quality candidates, each bringing a wide-range of qualities to the table.

But the judging panel was particularly impressed by the quality of Ziyad’s nomination.

Judges comments included the words “outstanding” and “excellent”. His nominator from the Hilton Dubai, Jumeirah credited him with being a “bona-fide Kitchen Hero”.

A born leader, Ziyad is regarded as “indispensible” by his executive chef, Stephen Bensonflower.

Ziyad said: “I would like to thank Caterer Middle East very much for this award. It is a great opportunity for me and I am very proud. I have worked for Hilton for 15 years which is a very long time. What this does at the end of the day is show the team support – that’s what makes everything happen every day.

"Every day there is a new challenge and it has to get sorted and they become heroes. I will celebrate this award with my management and my team and the team and my ambition now is to win more awards. I have achieved this with my team and that is very important to say at the end of the day.

"I’m a hero tonight for my management, my team and my colleagues. The award gives me the opportunity to go one more step ahead and have good chances in the future."
 

Highly commended in the category were Piyush Verma from Park Hyatt Hotel, Dubai and Sajid Iqbal Rown from Zuma.