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Well, the AA Hospitality Awards at the Park Lane Hilton earlier this week were a hoot. After a champagne reception and general schmoozing among the big-hitters in our industry (Yes Chef! spotted Jason Atherton, Benoit Blinn from Le Manoir and Helene Darroze on entering the room) we all moved through to the dining room for the main event.

This year the AA had gone all out with the catering - enlisting the help of three of London's most well-respected chefs, with Eric Chavot (recently departed from The Capital) doing the salmon starter, Chris Galvin (who's in the throws of opening a major new restaurant) providing the main beef course and Gary Rhodes crafting a lemon chiboust cream dessert.

Each course was incredibly impressive given the chefs were catering for much bigger numbers than they're all used to - 800-odd industry professionals, each with very high standards. We certainly wouldn't fancy having a go at that. But they took it in their stride and later in the evening, after the frantic service was over, Yes Chef! caught up with a very relaxed-looking Chris Galvin, who was enjoying a glass of champagne up on the 28th floor in his Galvin at Windows restaurant.

We also bumped into Eric Chavot, who was looking tanned and chilled out after his holiday in hometown Archachon. He didn't let us into what his plans are now he's a free agent, but we'll be keeping a very close eye on him from now on...

And what of the main draw - the awards? It was a particularly triumphant night for table 29 (which some were dubbing 'the naughty table'), which saw three of its chefs stand up to receive awards - Glynn Purnell winning Restaurant of the Year (England) for his Purnell's restaurant in Birmingham, Sat Baines being the only 5-star rosette achiever for his Nottingham restaurant with rooms, and Claude Bosi achieving four rosettes for Hibiscus in London.

Raymond Blanc (who recently graced the cover of Yes Chef!) was recognised for his years in the industry with the Lifetime Achievement Award - giving a passionate and self-deprecating speech, while last issue's cover star Marcus Wareing picked up the Chef's Chef award. It was also a happy night for Richard Corrigan, who won Best Restaurant (London) for his venture in Mayfair, while the lovely Helene Darroze got up on stage to pick up the Connaught's award for won Hotel of the Year for London.

All the excitement made for some tired chefs by the end of the night, and, according to Yes Chef! writer Emma Sturgess, some of them were finding it difficult to keep their eyes open. Of course, Yes Chef! partied the night away with the best of them...

Yes Chef! jumped at the chance to go down to the launch of the Good Food channel, which, after one of the biggest rebrands of its kind, is the last of the UKTV channels to be completed. The birth of the new channel, which is now partnered with Good Food magazine was celebrated in style with a massive cook off, subsequent lunch and free flowing bubbles.

The great and good of the food industry - luminaries like Antonio Carluccio, Richard Corrigan, Gary Rhodes and Allegra McEvedy gathered alongside freelance journalists, food bloggers and TV personalities to compete against each other in a three stage cook off, hosted by a very excitable Biggins and of course, engage in some mutual appreciation of what had brought us all together in the first place: food.

After instruction from cookbook author Tiffany Goodall, it was time for each table to have a crack at their cook-off courses, YC bravely going up for round one of the first course: prawn cocktail. Along with a lovely lady from the Sunday Times, we managed to create something resembling that classic British starter in under three minutes - including making our own mayonnaise from scratch!

If you think that sounds tough, we later had to take part in the 'pimp my trifle' round, during which we had to choose a bowl, all the ingredients and assemble something resembling a trifle in 90 seconds. Suffice to say it wasn't the greatest culinary feat, but we did remember, unlike many of the other teams, to soak the sponge in sherry.

After the excitement of the cook off had died down, YC managed to catch a few quiet moments with Antonio Carluccio, who it was good to see was on sparkling form - relaxed and warm. He advised us about the secrets of good gnocchi (make sure your imprint the raw pieces with a fork so it absorbs the sauce ) and spoke about his pet hate of people misusing the term antipasto.

Once onto the subject of Italian food - YC mentioned our love of Elizabeth David's Italian Food book, and Carluccio recalled the time he was called on to cook for David, who he described as an "intellectual" when she was in hospital in London near the end of her life. "I made her truffle tagliatelle in the hospital kitchen," he told YC. "I knew that she loved truffles so I wanted to make it for her when she was ill. She was delighted."

Yes Chef! would certainly have loved to be a fly on the wall for that meal.