Young Chef of the Year: Finalists announced for M Restaurants' prize

The finalists for M Restaurants' second Young Chef of the Year competition have been announced.

The list includes chefs from some of London's most popular restaurants, including Hide, Pollen St Social and the Coal Shed.

The top 12, all under 29, are set to cook over a series of takeover nights from July 3-28 and are competing to win a a five day pop-up at M Restaurant in Victoria. They will be judged by a panel of industry figures and chefs, including Adam Handling and José Pizarro. M Restaurants' founder Martin Williams and group executive chef Michael Reid are also on the deciding panel and the winner will be announced on July 31.

Williams said: "There are two purposes of the competition. One, to nurture the best young talent already in our kitchens and secondly I hope that by seeing what other young people are doing with food, it will inspire others to get into the professional kitchen and try it out for themselves.

"Thanks to Brexit the hospitality industry is suffering from worrying staff shortages and we want to make becoming a chef an aspirational career to students coming out of schools and colleges."

Londoners can judge for themselves by booking a table for one of the guest nights here.

The full list of finalists is below:

Ollie Fitton, 21, The Ryebeck Hotel, Bowness on Windemere

Adebayo, 22, Opera Tavern

Hamish Pearce, 22, Pidgin

Jamie Gardner, 23, Coal Shed

William Bowman Smith, 24, Galloways of Woburn

Stefano Camplone, 24, Neo Bistro

Daniel Andree, 25, The Curlew Restaurant

Aaron Ashmore, 27, Clarette

Mateusz Maksymilian Mitka, 28, Aviator – a hotel by TAG, Farnborough

Wojieck Okenski, 29, M

Andrew Beynon, 29, Pollen St Social

Filippo Boaro, 24, M