New Zealand Culinary Team Achieves Bronze

MEDIA RELEASE

23 May 2007

New Zealand Culinary Team Achieves Bronze
At International Competition

The New Zealand Culinary Team (NZCT) has achieved success in the USA picking up three bronze medals at the American Culinary Classic in Chicago.

NZCT business manager, Garry Miller, said the team was awarded two bronze medals for their presentation table in the cold food section of the competition and another bronze in the live hot kitchen section of the event.

Garry said the team was elated with the results particularly as the event is recognised by those within the industry as being one of the world’s top culinary competitions.

“The hot kitchen category required the chefs to prepare 80 portions of a three-course meal over a five hour period – it was pretty intense.”

The NZCT which is sponsored by Nestlé FoodServices comprises six of New Zealand’s top chefs - Jonny Schwass (Sezn Restaurant, Christchurch), Steve Le Corre (Aoraki Polytechnic, Timaru), Andrew Brown (The Millennium Hotel, Christchurch), Cameron Lawless (Season Café, Auckland), Pauline Nunns (Weltec, Wellington), and Darren Wright (Harbour 71, Akaroa).

Garry said the team is now looking forward to a well earned break, after having notched up over 500 hours preparation time in the lead up to the event.

The American Culinary Classic is recognised as one of the world’s top culinary competitions and saw the NZCT pitted against representatives from 11 other countries including the Bahamas, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, USA and Wales.

In addition to the hot and cold food sections there was also a pastry category where the team had to prepare two different cakes, a sweet or cheese platter, and four different desserts.

The team now plans to take part in other international cooking events including ScotHot in Scotland in 2009 and the Singapore FHA Culinary Challenge in 2010.

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