It was a quite extraordinary evening on Tuesday 25th September at The Ship in Wandsworth. In only its second year, The Scotch Egg Challenge has grown into something unique and celebrated with media coverage from the likes of Chris Evans and Zoe Ball and on various radio stations and across local and national press.
With the event supported by Fortnum & Mason this year, there was a sense that the celebrated bar snack was returning home. The crowd gathered inside The Ship to spectate and sample a variety of eggs, while outside people bustled to enter with word of mouth carrying news of the Challenge.
Manager of the Ship, Oisin Rogers, said: “We couldn’t be more pleased with the turn out. We’ve been selling Scotch eggs tonight. Last year we sold 140, this year we had sold out of 350 by 8.10pm – we could have easily done another 350 with this crowd.”
The judges this year were food writer and chef Gizzi Erskine, Master Pâtissier Eric Lanlard, Fortnum & Mason’s executive chef Shaun Hill, James Knappett from Bubbledogs and myself.
Here are the results:
Best Overall Scotch egg: The Bladebone Inn (@bladeboneinn)
Second Place Scotch egg: The Hind’s Head (@HindsHeadBray)
Third Place Scotch egg: The Drapers Arms (@DrapersArms)
Forever Eggsploring Award: Peyton & Byrne (@PeytonandByrne)
What a fabulous idea for a competition! Sure all of the winners are worthy! Interested as to whether the Harwood Arms participated, because if all or any of the winners’ scotch eggs are better than the HA’s venison version, then nirvana beckons me to the winners’ establishhments.
Hi Peter,
Yes, The Harwood Arms did participate in the Challenge. Their’s is a very fine egg indeed. You’ll find photographs from the event here: https://www.facebook.com/ScotchEggChallenge
wow that was a quick response! I was about to apologise for not bothering to look at the contenders where I indeed see the Harwood Arms participated. I had better check out the winners!