Today was the Western Australian Apprentice of the Year hot kitchen competition held at the West Coast Institute, Joondalup.
The field of 1st, 2nd, 3rd year apprentices and commercial cooks were from some of Perth’s leading restaurants, (Co Op Dining, Bib & Tucker, The Subiaco Hotel etc) which is fantastic to see hospitality businesses investing in their youth. The kitchens were abuzz from 9am to 1.30pm with the chefs each creating a three course menu for the judges to critique. They had limited ingredients to work with.
The many judges from all around Western Australia included Stephen Clarke of Clarkes of North Beach and Andy Mann, Executive Chef of Domain Stadium/WACA (and my Chef was also judging too!). They were impressed by the overall standard. Here’s a few of the many many dishes that caught my eye…
Patrick O’Brien the President of the Australian Culinary Federation (WA) announced the winners.
The winners are;
1st year Linh Khanh Tran (Tropico North Beach)
2nd year Mark Johnson (Co Op Dining)
3rd year Brody Young-Steedman (Co Op Dining)
Commercial cooks Kuo Cheng Lin
Congrats to all the winners and their employers! Head Chef Kiren Mainwaring must be doing a tremendous job with the young talent in his kitchen as Co Op Dining had two winning chefs.
If you’re interested in cooking comps, make sure you check out the upcoming Oceanafest hot Kitchen Comp at PCEC. Oceanafest has been running since 1997 and is regarded as Australia’s premier hot kitchen cooking competition. It’s on the 5th to 7th of July, open to the general public and free to attend. The national culinary teams from Thailand, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia will be competing as well as local teams and individual chefs. It’s a bi -annual event – here’s my round up of Oceanafest from 2013.
http://www.thechefhiswifeperth.com/2013/04/14/oceanafest-opening-day/
See you there!