The Grand Victoria Casino of Elgin collaborated with Elgin Community College the past month of October to award $7,000 to five culinary art students.

The challenge of the contestants was to create an appetizer or starter, that if chosen, would be featured for a year, in the casino’s Buckinghams Steakhouse.

Nearly 100 applications were received, but only ten students were chosen to compete in the semi-finals. selectionals were made based on the submitted picture and recipe.

Semi finals took place in ECC’s Spartan Terrace. For this stage the contestants prepared their own dish and presented it to the group of judges, who consisted of industry professionals and executives from the casino. Only five students moved onto finals.

Finals were hosted in the Grand Victoria Casino on Oct.26. The first place winner was first-year student Michael Prager; he won a cash prize of $2,500. Prager’s winning appetizer was “Smoked Salmon Crostini”.

The second place winner, Megan Sweeney, will have her appetizer offered at Buckinghams Steakhouse for a week as a special. Her cash prize was of $1,500.

The other 3 finalists each were awarded $1,000.

Mark Bosanac, professor of Culinary Management at ECC was in charge of the competition. “The students did a great job, they were very professional and passionate,” Bosanac said.