N.Z. chefs arrive for great culinary contest

Press, 29 January 1986, Page 6

N.Z. chefs arrive for great culinary contest

From

ROBIN CHARTERS

London Correspondent Eight New Zealand chefs, including two from Christchurch, will take on some of the best in the world at Hotelympia, Britain’s biennial international hotel and catering exhibition, in London this week. As well as the official four-man team representing the Cooking and Food Association of New Zealand, an Auckland city chefs’ team of four also will compete before the judges along with 1000 other contestants in the giant, . Olympia Stadium during eight days of heats and finals. The official New Zealand team representatives are Mike Magill, of Tiffany’s Restaurant, Christchurch, Greg Heffernan, executive chef at the Huka Lodge, Rick Rutledge-Manning, of Rose Park Hotel, Auckland, and Graham Brown, of Scarborough Fare Restaurant, Christchurch. Accompanied by the team manager, Mr Marcus Pearson, a catering tutor at the Auckland Technical Institute, they arrived in London last Thursday. Within hours, they were practising in the kitchens of the Royal Garden Hotel, in Knightsbridge.

Several hundred different classes at the event give entrants scope to show their skills with fare ranging from hors d’oeuvres, canapes, main dishes and elaborate desserts to school meals, airline in-flight dishes, and decorative works in fat, sugar and butter.

A feature event is the New Zealand lamb dish, sponsored by the New Zealand Lamb Catering Advisory Service, in which chefs have 45 minutes to prepare a lamb meal for four. More than 30 international chefs have entered and the organisers have been forced to hold three heats. No New Zealand chef has yet won the gold medal in this lamb class. The exhibition organiser, the director of Le Salon Culinaire Internationale de Londres, Mr John Worswick, says this is probably because of the use of frozen or chilled rather than fresh lamb to which chefs are accustomed in New Zealand.

Several of the New Zealand chefs competing in the exhibition this year have entered in the lamb

class. The Auckland city team members are Vicki Bruhns-Bolderson, of the Bayswater Cafe, Mark Gregory, executive chef of the Hotel De Brett, Simon McNamara, sous chef at the Orleans Restaurant, and Dietmar Sawyere, of the Hyatt Kingsgate. The Auckland team manager is Mr Warwick Brown, owner of Le Gourmet Restaurant. He is a previous winner of a gold

and silver medal at Hotelympia. Although Mr Magill is the only competing chef to have taken part in a Hotelympia competition before, all the New Zealanders have had extensive international culinary experience. One of their aims, says Mr Pearson, is to pick up new ideas and recipes from the world’s leading chefs who will be competing, “and hopefully some medals as well.”