Top chefs auction themselves off to raise £400k for leukaemia charity

Published: 01 March, 2013

Twenty of the country's top chefs including Marcus Wareing, Angela Hartnett and Mark Hix have raised nearly £400k for charity by cooking dinner for 200 guests and auctioning themselves off to the highest bidders.

The Who's Cooking Dinner? event was held on Monday night at the Four Seasons Hotel in Park Lane and each chef prepared a four course dinner for a table of ten people, who didn't know which chef would be cooking for them until names were drawn at the last minute. Each chef also personally selected the wines to go accompany the meal.

After dinner some of the chefs put themselves up for auction, and the successful bidders can look forward to enjoying a private dinner for ten cooked by the culinary maestros in their own homes at a future date. After some fast and furious bidding dinner cooked by Marcus Wareing went for a record-breaking £28,000, while Nobu's Mark Edwards went for £18,000 and Laurence Keogh of the Wolsley for £16,000. In total £381,000 was raised by the chef''s auction.

The event raises funds for the leukaemia charity Leuka, and was set up 14 years ago by Peter Gordon of Providores fame after his sister suffered from the disease, along with Wolseley co-owner Chris Corbin who also had the illness.

"We're so lucky to have such an amazing family of chefs and restaurants supporting this event," said Corbin. "Each year they rise to the occasion - the dishes paraded into the ballroom are highly innovative and of astonishing quality'

To date the charity has raised more than £4.3m.

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