Hotel and Restaurant Association of the Philippines - Chefs On Parade - Manila

The Hotel and Restaurant Association of the Philippines (HRAP) organized the first Chefs on Parade (COP) in 1974 as a simple food display at the Sea Breeze Hotel in Bacolod City , Negros Occidental. The sold-out one-day event featured chefs from participating hotels cooking for a small crowd of food enthusiasts, who got to sample the finished products at the end of the day. There was no competition yet as we now know it.The COP participants originally intended to stay in Bacolod for no more than a day. However, many of them were prevailed to stay by as much as four days by some of the affluent families in the area who invited them to be their houseguests. The guests were much surprised that at mealtimes they were served the recipes they cooked during the event. They discovered that the  

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household cooks from these families were sent to the cooking demonstration to learn new dishes.The COP has greatly evolved from that simple food demonstration. With Manila as its regular venue, the event became the Chefs of Parade we know now in 1983 when Millie Reyes of the Plaza Restaurant chaired it. The competition blazed the trail for other culinary events that came after it.