Being a Royal Navy chef has got to be one of the toughest cooking jobs going. If your customers don’t like the food, they are going to have plenty of opportunities to let you know – and escaping them is not an option.

Celebrity chef and cookery writer,Anton Edelmann joined up with Elior, which has the contract to cater for the navy. Elior’s food development director, Peter Joyner, cooked alongside the Navy chefs to prepare a special VIP dinner as part of the Trafalgar Day commemorations on board HMS Victory. The dinner was hosted by The Second Sea Lord, Vice Admiral Jonathan Woodcock OBE. It was an intimate dinner for 23 VIP guests including senior naval dignitaries and business leaders.

Anton is said to have taught the Royal Navy Chefs a thing or two during the process of making the meal so soldiers aboard the HMS Victory can be expecting to sample some fine cuisine on their next deployment at sea.

Anton said: “It’s unusual for Navy and civilian chefs to work side by side and I felt privileged to be a part of this important event in the Naval calendar. It was tremendous fun and the camaraderie and banter among the team was great. The chefs were versatile and certainly knew what they were doing but were still interested to learn some new techniques.”

Peter added: “The experience was an eye opener for both sides – we all learnt something that day. Navy chefs rarely have the opportunity to see how civilian chefs work, particularly in contract catering. We wanted to show them what we can do – after all, they may wish to work on our side of the fence one day.”

Peter Joyner was there representing Elior UK, who have managed the catering contract at Portsmouth Naval Base since April 2014.