Leeds dining awards nominations close with 350 individual category entries

Caption: Harrogate insert, March 16, what's on

Caption: Rudding Park chef Stephanie Moon, who will be one of the exhibitors at Magazine Live.

Malton Food Lovers Market, Milton Rooms. TV chef Stephanie Moon. Picture by Andrew Higgins 120988b 03/03/12 — Caption: Harrogate insert, March 16, what's on Caption: Rudding Park chef Stephanie Moon, who will be one of the exhibitors at Magazine Live. Malton Food Lovers Market, Milton Rooms. TV chef Stephanie Moon. Picture by Andrew Higgins 120988b 03/03/12

The number of individual category entries topped 350, making it one of our busiest years to date.

This will be the 11th year of the dining industry awards and it also looks set to be our most exciting, thanks to the input of our three expert judges.

They are: consultant chef and food ambassador for Yorkshire Stephanie Moon, a farmer daughter who has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry and has even cooked for The Queen. Alongside her will be esteemed food writer Amanda Wragg, a critic for our sister paper The Yorkshire Post but who is also a writer for The Times and has grown up around pubs and restaurants. Last but by no means least is respected beer writer Simon Jenkins, a one-time employee of YEP and author of several books - he also writes our regular Taverner column, published every Thursday.

All three will be casting their eyes over the longlist, which will be published in the paper on Thursday this week.

We will then begin deliberating over which restaurants should make it onto the shortlist, which will be published in January, ahead of the awards themselves in March.

The awards were established to shine a light on the local dining industry, to give a boost to independent restaurants and celebrate hard work and success and we hope to be able to continue that trend, not least with the introduction of our Best Brewery category.