Smiles all around from Luxembourg for the Australian Culinary Teams

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The Australian National Culinary Teams have won Silver & Bronze Medals at the  Villeroy & Boch Culinary World Cup in Luxembourg.

The Australian Culinary Federation for the first time was invited to send a Youth Team & a Community Catering Team to The Culinary World Cup in Luxembourg, a premier event organised by the Vatel Chefs Club Luxembourg that attracts the top teams from all over the world. It is an invitation only event & teams are selected on their competition ranking in the world.

This is the first international event the teams will attend on their journey for gold in the lead up to the Culinary Olympics in Stuttgart Germany in 2024

The National Community Catering Team won a bronze medal on the first day of the competition they had to conceptualize, plan, realize and serve a lunch for 120 people around the theme “Our culinary traditions and culture nowadays“, the service was based on the free-flow-system; in addition, one main-course had to be cooked/finished & served at the front-cooking station.

Led by Andrew Ballard Simmer Culinary Victoria the team consisted of Stephen Lunn TasTAFE Tasmania, Alin Gavril Fraser Suites, Che Tam Nguyen North Metro TAFE & Harry Joyce Sodexo all from Western Australia & Karen Doyle TAFE NSW New South Wales. Andrew said, “It was a hard war in the kitchen, and the team overcame every challenge thrown at us with complete professionalism!!!”.

The National Youth Team had 2 competitions in their schedule the first one being Restaurant of Nations on day 1 where they took home a silver medal. The Team had to prepare cook & serve live a 3-course menu for 70 people in 6 hours. The theme for the menu was Flavours of Australia

  • 1st dish: A hot or mainly hot preparation of fish/and or shellfish and/or seafood with side dishes.

  • 2nd dish: A hot preparation of meat and/or poultry and/or game with side dishes and decorations in accordance with modern nutritional standards.

  • 3rd dish: A dessert made of different textures and temperatures

The second competition was “Table On Fire” on day 4 & the team won a bronze medal. Table on Fire is a chefs table for 12 people. The table had to consist of the following

  • Four different kinds of finger food

  • One cold Festive platter to be comprised of, fish and /or shellfish and or seafood

  • One Salad served separately

  • One plated hot main course

  • One plated dessert

Team Captain was Amber Heaton Cucina Vivo Queensland who led a team of young chefs all under the age of 25, Stephanie Lawler Amaze Richmond Tasmania, the rest hailing from Western Australia Naomi Velterop Nextdoor, Jordan Murphy PFD Foodservices, Jessica Roe Bistro Guillaume, Liam Brnic Market and Co. & Courtney Short Hospitality Group Training, Pan Pacific Perth. Amber said “It is an honour to Captain the Youth Team and I am so very proud of the result & the teams’ performance, we have come so far in such a short amount of time”

ACF President Karen Doyle said “ I am very proud of the dedication, effort and teamwork that has been put in by our National Teams for this competition, it is wonderful to be back in the International Competition Arena & we would not have accomplished this without the generous backing of our sponsors & all the people back home in Australia supporting the teams”

The ACF Culinary Teams journey for Gold is proudly supported by the following - Moffat, Krio Krush, Nestle Professional, Robot Coupe, Connect Staffing Group, Queen Professional, Classic Meats, Huon Aquaculture, Select Fresh, Rieber & North Metropolitan TAFE.