TALENTED train chef Shaun Garrett found the recipe for success when he scooped the coveted title of National Express Chef of the Year at York’s National Railway Museum.

In a hotly contested cook-off, Leeds-based Shaun beat three other chef finalists from the East Coast main line – Colin Pattie and James Gilbert from Edinburgh and Mick Reading from London.

Shaun’s railway culinary career began when he joined GNER on a 12-week contract back in 2001, and he has cooked on East Coast main line trains ever since.

Before joining the railway, Shaun worked as a chef in the kitchens of Irish Ferries, at Dublin Airport and in several nursing homes in Yorkshire.

Judged by celebrity chef and chief proprietor of Le Café Anglais Rowley Leigh and NXEC managing director David Franks, Shaun’s dish featured a starter of salad with smoked trout and orange, a main course of corn-fed chicken with apples and cider on crushed potatoes and spinach, and a dessert of apple charlotte infused with cinnamon.

And passengers will be able to judge Shaun’s dish for themselves when it features in future restaurant menus on NXEC trains.