Beef + Lamb New Zealand Announces 2020 Ambassador Chefs
Left to right: Phil clark, Phil’s Kitchen; Norka Mella Munoz, Mangapapa Hotel; Jack Crosti, Number 5 Restaurant; Tejas Nikam, Vices & Virtues.
Congratulations to the four chefs who have just been announced as the 2020 Beef + Lamb Ambassador Chefs. It is with great delight that we will be working with these talented chefs throughout the year, who will act as leaders driving innovation and creativity using New Zealand beef and lamb within the foodservice sector.
The four chefs are:
Phil Clark, Phil’s Kitchen, Auckland
Jack Crosti, Number 5, Auckland
Tejas Nikam, Vices & Virtues, Christchurch
Norka Mella Munoz, Mangapapa Hotel, Havelock North
We are very proud to say that Beef + Lamb New Zealand has been highlighting the wealth of talented chefs in New Zealand for close to quarter of a century. To date, we have showcased the skills, craft and creativity of over 80 Ambassador Chefs. These have included some of the best-known faces of Aotearoa’s food scene including; Peter Gordon, The Sugar Club; Rex Morgan, Boulcott Street Bistro; Kate Fay, Cibo; Shaun Clouston, Logan Brown; Mat McLean, Palate; and Darren Wright, Chillingworth Road to name but a few, earning the reputation as New Zealand’s most sort after culinary job club.
To be eligible to enter, chefs needed to submit their most creative, tasty and visually appealing beef and lamb dishes on their menu. Applicants were shortlisted by a Beef + Lamb Advisory Panel with the finalists having their beef and lamb dishes anonymously assessed in their restaurants by culinary-trained experts late last year.
The calibre of chefs who applied was extremely high and we were delighted with the excellent level of creativity and enthusiasm from chefs around the country who sent in applications. Not only were chefs putting together well thought out beef and lamb dishes with interesting flavour combinations, but the level of execution was very high. With such a high standard, it was a tough decision whittling it down to four chefs.
Ultimately, we were looking for chefs to be the voices of Beef + Lamb New Zealand in the hospitality space who can inspire other chefs and help to shape our country’s food story. We also looked for chefs who were plating up beef and lamb as the hero and who had the inspiration and knowledge to create a story behind their dish.
To celebrate the announcement, the newly named 2020 Ambassador Chefs came together in Auckland to cook up their best beef and lamb dishes at the beautiful UnserHaus showroom in Parnell. With the four chefs all coming from a range of different global backgrounds and training, each ambassador was able to demonstrate how they uniquely combined their heritage with New Zealand produce to create their dishes.
It was a fantastic couple of days watching these chefs in the kitchen and we had a lot of fun capturing them in action.