Meet the Women Roux Scholarship Regional Finalists for 2024

UPDATE – Evelina Stripeikyte has reached the finals and will be competing on 8th April at the Alain Roux Culinary School at The Waterside Inn. The result with be announced at the award ceremony at Coworth Park & live streamed on Roux Scholarship’s YouTube Channel.

There are three female chefs competing in the Roux Scholarship regional finals, all of whom are new to the competition. They are: Evelina Stripeikyte, Megan Montibert and Rebecca Tough.

Michel Roux Snr founded the Roux Scholarship with his brother Albert to enable a new generation of chefs from Britain to train in the greatest restaurants in the world and the first ever competition took place in 1984. It has become one of the industry’s most acclaimed chef competitions in the UK and this year celebrates its 40 year anniversary.

Photography by Jodi Hinds

Last year April Lily Partridge from The Ledbury, became only the second woman in its the award’s history to triumph, not since Mercy Fenton from Ireland won it in 1994. Since winning the Roux Scholarship April Lily Partridge won the Chefs to Watch Special Category at The National Restaurant Awards on 12th June 2023.

Evelina, Megan and Rebecca are part of a group of 18 chefs, and two reserves, who were selected from their written recipes that had to use one short loin of free-range gilt pork, two fresh pork kidneys, crackling and sweet potatoes. They were submitted anonymously to the judges, who took part in the Recipe Judging day at The Waterside Inn on 21st February 2024.

We meet them ahead of two regional finals which will be held simultaneously on Thursday 7th March 2024 at University College Birmingham and University of West London, Ealing.

Evelina Stripeikyte
The Glenturret Lalique Restaurant, Scotland.

Evelina is chef de partie at The Glenturret Lalique restaurant, an establishment with a good track record in supporting chefs entering The Roux Scholarship, as has her previous establishment Restaurant Andrew Fairlie. She grew up in Lithuania where the forests and sprawling fields inspired her, with the support of her family, to become a chef. She took part in MasterChef The Professionals in October 2023.

Megan Montibert
L’Enclume

Megan works as senior chef de partie at L’Enclume and will soon be joining Roux Scholar Tom Barnes at his new restaurant Skof as sous chef. She fell in love with cooking at a young age, learning from her grandmothers and mother. She holds a degree in International Management and Modern Languages from the University of Bath.

Rebecca Tough 

Vacherin, London

Rebecca works as sous chef at a Vacherin site at Ashurst, a law firm in Liverpool Street, where she has had the support of previous Roux Scholarship finalist Sabrina Gidda. She has previously worked with previous Roux Scholarship finalist Ruth Hansom at the Princess of Shoreditch and Pomonas.

Quotes from the Judges

Emily Roux: (pictured above) “Judging the recipes was really interesting and it was difficult to whittle them down to choose the 18 finalists. We really have gone into a lot of detail in our discussions about what separates the recipes that have gone through to the regional finals, from those that haven’t. It’s also great to see chefs from across the competition’s age range – from age 22 to 29.”

Angela Hartnett OBE: “We saw a lot of modern interpretations of things, lots of different spices, different herbs, processes in cooking in these recipes, which is great. You have to adhere to the classics because they underline everything, but it’s great to see they’d thought their recipes through so well.”

You may also be interested in our interviews the following chefs: 

Ruth Hansom on making the Roux Scholarship finals in 2022 and Olivia Burt on making the Roux Scholarship finals in 2022. Plus read our ambassador Antonia Lloyd’s interview with April Lily Partridge on winning the Roux Scholarship in 2023.