Proud to be a chef announces 2023 Special award winners

ISAAC NIX, ARCHER HOUGHTON, BETHANY HARMAN & ZAINE HAMKA-CLARK

More than two decades since its founding, Anchor™ Food Professionals’ Proud to Be a Chef  professional development and mentoring program continues to champion the best of Australia’s next generation chefs by providing them with a truly life-changing experience.

This year’s program saw 33 apprentice chefs from across Australia chosen as finalists, who travelled to Melbourne in February to participate in a four-day experiential journey encompassing culinary experiences, workshops, masterclasses with mentors and industry leaders and dining at prominent restaurants. As always the program culminated in a cook-off at William Angliss Institute and a gala dinner at which outstanding finalists were presented with special awards.

ARCHER HOUGHTON

This year’s Proud to Be a Chef International Culinary Scholarship, valued at $7,500 and tailored to the winner’s personal interests and goals as a professional chef, was awarded to ARCHER HOUGHTON from Mercer’s Restaurant. Upon presenting the award, Proud to Be a Chef resident mentor and Anchor™ Food Professionals Executive Chef Mark Normoyle said, “Over the last four days we’ve been looking closely at all our participants to determine the recipient of this year’s Culinary Scholarship – it’s not necessarily awarded to the best dish, rather it’s given to someone who we believe would really benefit from this investment in their career, and who has immersed themselves in the program from day one.”  

Archer said of his win: “As an apprentice chef, to have the opportunity that this program offers to dine out, get up close and personal with chefs who just blow your mind every day, be able to go into top restaurants, see the kitchen and ask questions, has just been incredible – I don’t know how they’ve done it, the four days has felt like a year! I’ve always loved cooking and as I’ve talked to everyone here, they’ve all said that being part of this program has reignited their passion. I’ll never forget this experience of bonding with new people, making friends who are now family. Which is what cooking is all about – we go through some tough times but we bond, we share, and at the end of the service we don’t say ‘that was so hard’ but ‘that was so much fun, now how can we make it even better?’”

Best Savoury Dish at the cook-off event was awarded to ISAAC NIX of  The Star Sydney. On accepting his award, Isaac said, “It’s been an awesome couple of days – I want to say to the mentors and everyone who’s in charge of creating this program, the experience has been fantastic. I wasn’t expecting to walk away with this!” Isaac’s savoury dish was a Crispy Imperidor with Lemongrass Sauce, Fish Cracker and Tomato Salsa: “It sounds simple but it’s actually quite detailed. I decided I wanted to use a whole fish and then started experimenting with complementary ingredients until I had the recipe. I also tried to use familiar dairy ingredients like butter and cream in an unconventional way.”

Best Sweet was awarded to BETHANY HARMAN of  Vue de Monde who said upon accepting her award: “I was not expecting this at all and I don’t know what to say … thank you everyone for supporting me, I’m just so grateful. This is such an outstanding program and it’s mind-blowing how much work goes into it!” Bethany created a dessert of Elderflower Parfait, Peach Compote, Pickled Peaches and Mountain Marigold Ice Cream – the latter an ingredient she was introduced to at work: “As soon as I tasted its passionfruity, florally flavour it set off numerous ideas in my head.”

Best Use of Social Media in documenting the finalists’ journey through the Proud to Be a Chef program was awarded to ZAINE HAMKA-CLARK of  Nobu Melbourne. Anchor™ Food Professionals Channel Marketing Manager Kym Gill said, “Today we’re in a world where social media is key and it’s really important not only for us to share our program, but for others to share it and encourage more people to join it. This year we’ve smashed it out of the park and that’s not because of what we’ve done, it’s actually due to our participants who have shared the steps of their journey, and Zaine was a real stand-out.”

Zaine said upon receiving his award: “This experience has been amazing so I really wanted to capture it with my social media and I’m glad I could. I wanted to share as much as I could about the program in the hope of encouraging other apprentices to be part of it, and I tried to capture the special little moments that others might not be able to see. I love that social media is able to do that – I have a food blog called What Zaine Cooks, which I started doing as a reflective journal so I could see how far I’ve come, and I’ve had some opportunities come out of that, which has made me realise the importance of social media in our modern age.”

For full details about Proud To Be a Chef 2023, including video interviews with finalists and mentors, please visit http://www.proudtobeachef.com. Details and application forms for the 2024 program will be made available later this year.