Five in a row for BOP Polytechnic!

‘Impressive’, ‘exciting’, ‘extremely tender’ and ‘an absolute triumph’ were some of the adjectives used to describe the Atrium Restaurants’ lamb and beef dishes which were awarded a prestigious 2015 NZ Beef and Lamb Excellence Award recently.

This is the fifth Excellence Award in as many years for Bay of Plenty Polytechnic’s training restaurant and is testament that the hospitality programmes offered at the Polytechnic continue to produce chefs of a very high calibre.

Aidan Galloway, Head Chef of the Atrium Restaurant is very pleased with the win. “I think the fact we have won the New Zealand Beef and Lamb Excellence Awards five years in a row really demonstrates to our students that the Polytechnic is staying current with Culinary Industry trends,” says Aidan. “Culinary Art tutors here at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic are designing and creating exemplary menus for the Atrium Restaurant and giving their Hospitality students an amazing opportunity to replicate these creations to the public.”

Only eight Excellence Awards were given out in the Bay of Plenty this year and it was pleasing to see that Andrew Targett and the team at Elizabeth Café & Larder also picked up an Excellence Award. Andrew, former head chef at the Polytechnic, handpicked a number of Polytechnic graduates for his award winning team.

The Beef & Lamb Excellence Awards’ are ‘designed to acknowledge a consistently high standard of beef and lamb cuisine. Whenever you see the Beef and Lamb Excellence Award, you can expect tasty, skilfully composed and superbly presented beef and lamb dishes.’

The two Polytechnic dishes which won the judges over were: beef sirloin pan fried to medium, fondant potatoes, edamame puree, white miso broccolini, sliced radish, master stock jus and crispy shallots; and spiced rubbed NZ lamb back strap, grilled to medium rare, maple butter nut puree, steamed green beans, baby beets, sticky balsamic jus, wasabi peas and snow pea tendrils.

Restaurants need to apply to Beef & Lamb NZ to be considered for the awards, must be a restaurant which is open to the public and have a beef and a lamb dish as a main menu item for the whole season. Assessors visit each restaurant anonymously twice throughout the year to judge the dishes.

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