MAY 2017: The 2017 Namibian Chefs Association, Junior Chef of the Year was held on 6th and 7th April at Silver Spoon Hospitality Academy. We were fortunate enough to have a guest Judge from South Africa, Chef Shaun Smith (Director of Education for the South African Chefs Association), to assist with a workshop leading to the competition. Chef Shaun explained the importance of hygiene processes as well as the importance of their preparation and planning in the competition environment. He went into further detail about what the participants should keep in mind with regards to the judging criteria and what the judges would be looking for.
We had 33 participants enter into the competition, which is a record amount of entries for The Namibian Chefs Association at the Junior Level. The participants were split up into 3 sessions to prepare and cook their menus. Some amazing food was produced, methodical preparation observed, great hygiene standards and a lot of fun was had by all.
First place over all went to Johannes Levie Tieties, second place over all went to Sharon Matatias, third place over all went to Roelf Diergaardt, Top Kitchen Mark went to Brendall Masambo and the Top Tasting mark went to Andreas Iikukutu.
It is very encouraging to see these young chefs test themselves at this level and we were glad to see that there is some hidden talent in the country. The Judging panel selected 12 participants as part of the Junior Namibian Squad. From this training squad, a final team will be selected to possibly represent Namibia at the African Culinary Cup later this year in Mauritius at junior level.
We would like to thank all of our sponsors and loyal supporters that helped us make this event a success. We hope that next year we are able to make the competition even bigger to pave the way for the future of our junior Chefs and our industry.
