The Week in Bites<br>1st July 2012

Chefs on Deck in
This week on FDL we travelled to Venice to partake in the S.Pellegrino Cooking Cup - an event that sees ten young chefs from around the world take to the Venice Lagoon in boats for a traditional regatta that combined sailing and cooking.

Chefs this year were presented with a Mystery basket of ingredients which meant that, for the first time in its twelve year history, all the chefs would be cooking with the same ingredients.

Famous chefs  Davide Scabin, Massimo Bottura and Mauro Colagreco were in attendance to offer their words of encouragement to the young chefs. The winning chef was Richard Ousby from Australia with David Frenkel from Israel taking third in the Acqua Panna People's Choice Award. We were there to film a great video of all the action as it happened on the day . 

Diversity Dished Up
After Venice FDL travelled to England's capital city to cover the Taste of London festival. While there we took a look at London's rich and diverse food scene and just how London's immigration has affected the food on offer in the city.

We spoke with chefs Theo Randall and Jason Atherton and heard how they have both been affected by London's cultural mix of race, tradition and flavor. We heard from young chefs just starting to make their mark on the city and one of the first ever Thai restaurants to open in London.

It's a nice look at what is now one of the most diverse food landscapes in the world.

The Flower Chef of Girona
Keen on the edible flower movement and the resurgence in chefs who are cooking with flowers we headed to straight to Girona this week to meet Iolanda Bustos of the La Calendula restaurant.

Iolanda has been cooking with flowers since her restaurant opened three years ago and offers diners a unique experience in which they can sample a whole array of flowers collected by Iolanda on her weekly foraging trips.

The piece included an interview with the chef plus some amazing pictures of her beautifully prepared dishes - from mixed flower salad with salmon to moist duck on a bed of mint risotto.

Also this week
We brought you a list of ten curries you've probably never heard of, news of the world's first ever online culinary school and a great collection of food inspired hats from Royal Ascot.