From May 9 till May 18 5th Anniversary International Competition of Culinary Art “Taste of Life” (Greek version) was held on island Crete (Greece). Organizers of this event were Ukrainian and Greek culinary associations. Such countries as France, Azerbaijan, Serbia, Croatia, Russia, Moldova also took part in this competition. The national team of Ukraine was represented by the best culinary specialists of the country – unsurpassed cooks of the restaurant "DNIPRO", who won the Cup of Grand prix of the festival «Black box» and also gold and silver awards in all nominations.
It is necessary to notice also that a member of the international competition jury - head chef of the restaurant «Panorama Club» Vyacheslav Gribov took a prize from association of culinary specialists of Crete for his contribution to cooking art.
«The Black Box» - such specific name to a cup was given by the competition with the same name, called to define a victorious team, - in the Black box were served the ingredients of which participants during twenty minutes should make the menu and in an hour and forty minutes to prepare two portions of cold snacks, basic dishes and desserts. The first portion intended for the jury estimation, the second, as well as any other masterpiece, for flashes of cameras.
Commands-representatives of four countries, three persons in each team, were struggling for the Cup. For each command the set of dishes in the Black box was defined by random choice. For Ukrainian cooks its fell to work with mutton and seafood. Two months of preparation, study of different variations of dishes, heated arguments and experiments haven’t passed for nothing – following dishes were presented to jury evaluation by cooks of the “Dnipro” restaurant: seafood prepared by “Lobster of Termidor” technology (original technology of this dish, by the way, is presented in the “Dnipro” restaurant’s menu), square neck of a lamb stuffed with Feta cheese, with a garnish “Potato of Grotten”. Refinement and exquisite taste were seen the true value!
The list of awards brought from the competition can be named impressive, but for visitors of the restaurants "DNIPRO" and «Panorama Club» such state of affairs seems quite natural, because chefs of these restaurants create such masterpieces for their clients daily:

Chef-cooks Grand-prize command: Nazarenko Sergey, Mingeresh Valery, Didok Alexey;
Original basic dish – Didok Alexey – gold;
Modern cuisine – Nazarenko Sergey – silver;
Dish of mutton – Mingeresh Valery – gold;
Original dish of hydrocoles – Mingeresh Valery – gold;
Paste – Nazarenko Sergey – gold;
Ethnic basic dish – Nazarenko Sergey – gold;
Restaurant desserts – Mingeresh Valery – silver;
The gold head chef of the year – Mingeresh Valery – silver.