\"If a Judge Comes Back for a Second Mouthful, He Liked It: Steve Munkley MBE on Judging, Mentoring, and the Future of Care Catering\"
What do the judges actually look for — and what sends them walking away after one bite?
In this episode, Rob Spence sits down with Steve Munkley MBE, Head Judge of the NACC Care Chef of the Year and Vice President of the Craft Guild of Chefs. Steve shares the inside track on the competition, the common mistakes that cost competitors marks, and why the first fifteen minutes of the final tell him almost everything he needs to know.
Steve Munkley has been a chef since he was sixteen. He's cooked on the QE2, worked in Switzerland when it was the gastronomic capital of the world, and spent twenty-five years as Head Chef at the five-star Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington. Earlier this year, he was awarded an MBE in the King's Honours List — not for the cooking, but for everything he's done around it: founding the Craft Guild Graduate Awards (now in its twenty-fourth year), running apprenticeship programmes, mentoring young chefs, and helping students through the Grand Cuisine Academy's online training platform. His wife says he's busier now than when he was at work.
In this episode, host Rob Spence gets Steve talking about what it's like to sit on the other side of the pass. As Head Judge of the NACC Care Chef of the Year, he's candid about the mistakes he sees year after year — under-seasoned food, cold plates, dishes that try too hard — and equally candid about what makes something memorable. \"If a judge comes back for a second mouthful, he liked it,\" he says.
\"If he only takes one and walks away, you haven't quite hit the back of his palate.\" He still talks about a Persian curry from the 2025 final, and a plate of food that could have sat in a four-rosette restaurant — both stick in the memory not because he's been reviewing notes, but because the food genuinely landed.
What Steve has also brought to the competition is honesty. When he arrived five years ago, entries had dropped. He spent a year watching before making changes — introducing one-to-one feedback sessions after each round, raising the spend allowance, and removing some of the pressure around logistics. The result: entry numbers are back to where they were a decade ago. Competitors, he says, don't mind not winning — as long as they understand why, and leave with something to build on. That philosophy runs through everything he does.
His advice to anyone sitting on the fence about entering is straightforward: \"If you're not in it, you can't win it. Cook what you're comfortable with, cook what you enjoy, and don't put something on your entry that you're not happy with yourself — because then we won't be happy with it either.\"
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The National Association of Care Catering (NACC) unites, supports and represents everyone working in and associated with catering in the UK care sector. It is recognised as a respected source of information and opinion for the dynamic and growing area of care catering.
For more than 30 years, it has been committed to raising standards of care catering and championing the positive impact nutrition, hydration and mealtimes have on the physical and emotional health and wellbeing of the elderly and vulnerable in care settings.
To learn about The National Association of Care Catering, please visit: https://www.thenacc.co.uk/
A massive thank you to the Sponsors of the Care Chef of the Year:
The Worshipful Company of Cooks
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