Northland Salon Culinaire – Congratulations to the winners

Thursday 19th May 2011
For immediate release:

Northland Salon Culinaire – Congratulations to the 2011 winners

The 2011 Northland Salon Culinaire was held on 15th & 16th of May at NorthTec, Whangarei. An initiative of Northland Chefs, the Northland Salon Culinaire is a platform to showcase the best of Northland’s talented young professionals.

The first day of competitions focused on the open classes and trainee classes for those already in the industry or further along in their tertiary education. The main event and highly anticipated Nestle Professional Training Team of the Year class saw current title holders Culinary Institute of NZ take on two teams from NorthTec. It was a good race with each team pitting their skills against each other in the kitchen; cooking a 3-course meal, and front of house; serving it to a table of 3 seated guests. Once again the Culinary Institute of NZ’s team (Rimu Whittington, Karen Ishikawa - Kitchen & Zoe Edmonds - Front of House) were the winners of this event with an overall silver medal. Monday, the spotlight was on Secondary Schools with Whangarei Girls High School student Kirsten Goodland taking home the only silver medal of the day for the Pasta Main class. It was a theme that would carry on through the day for Whangarei Girls as they came out on top for the second year in a row winning the Penguin Wholesalers Top School Northland 2011 award.

Running alongside the Northland Salon Culinaire was the Altura Northland Barista Championship which saw a number of outstanding Barista’s either in training or already working in industry compete for the title of Altura Northland Barista of the Year. The winner of the open class was Josiah Cochran from Nectar Café and runner-up was Brittany Cox from Essence Café. The 1st equal winners of the trainee class were Helen Sims from Spear Hospitality and Tyran Hay from NorthTec.

Media spokesperson for Northland Chefs Kate Claydon says “The overall standard of the whole competition was great and once again we saw some secondary school students who were on par with or even surpassing trainees in some events. We are fortunate in Northland to have access to some quality mentors and tutors and the students are very lucky to have such dedicated and passionate people to work with them and guide them towards being industry ready. If this competition is anything to go by the future is certainly bright for the Northland hospitality industry.”

Northland Chefs would like to thank the sponsors and prize contributors of the Northland Salon Culinaire, without them this event would not be possible:

• The New Zealand Chefs Association
• HSI
• Altura Coffee
• Northland Hospitality
• Spear Hospitality
• NorthTec
• Harvest Wholesale
• Barkers
• Nestle Professional
• Delmaine Foods
• Culinary Institute of NZ
• House of Knives
• Omak Meats
• Penguin Wholesalers
• Virtue Books
• Southern Hospitality
• Liquor King
• Bidvest
• Nectar Cafe
• Revas
• Soda Café
• Classic Hits Northland
• ZM Northland
• Killer Prawn
• Apprentice Restaurant

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