Hilton Park Lane chefs crowned winners of Bake Off: The Professionals

Pastry chef Emmanuel Bonneau and junior sous chef Sam Leatherby from the Hilton Park Lane hotel have been crowned the winning team of Channel 4’s Bake Off: The Professionals 2018.  

The final three teams were tasked with creating a banquet display to serve 80 people in the show finale, with each group making four different types of dessert and a centre showpiece combining chocolate and sugar work.

According to the judges it was the Hilton Park Lane team that impressed them the most due to their “precision, passion and patisserie knowledge”. Chloe Avery, series producer, said: “Sam’s sugar work was exquisite – so ambitious, intricate, delicate and beautifully constructed. The desserts demonstrated a range of techniques that were not only individual and lovely but the Hilton Park Lane team also created sharing-size entremets which were impressive.”

After their win, Leatherby, said: “That was insane. Our journey has gone from strength to strength, we were friends no doubt about it, but he [Emmanuel] was more my boss and friend second. That’s changed and now we are friends as much as he is my boss.”

Bonneaul added: “It’s Sam and nobody else. There’s no way I could have done it with anyone else. We met some great guys, we had some amazing times, it’s been a real pleasure to compete with the other guys, it’s friends very likely for life.”