Bocuse d’Or Team New Zealand is thrilled to announce they have earned a spot at the world’s most prestigious gastronomic competition with their top five ranking in the Bocuse d’Or Asia Pacific 2022 selection. This is the first time any New Zealand entrant has made it to the final of what is recognised internationally as the ‘gastronomy equivalent of the Olympic Games’.
Team Aotearoa consists of Candidate Chef William Mordido (BUKO) and Commis Chef Szren Hamberger (Park Hyatt Auckland) and Coach Ken O’Connell (Copia Restaurant). They will be judged by some of the best chefs in the world, with past judges including Thomas Keller, Rasmus Kofoed, Ferran Adrià, Wolfgang Puck and Heston Blumenthal, with John Kelleher (AUT) who will be NZ’s Jury Member on the tasting jury over the two-day competition.
Due to impacts of COVID 19, the highly anticipated regional event, which is usually held in a live competition setting, was moved to an online application. This involved creating a vegetarian recipe submission highlighting tofu as the key ingredient. The submission had to include a carefully curated video paying homage to the team, their inspirations and showing the dish created, ‘A Taste of Tofu’. The video was produced by The Breakout Room and Brewery Studios, and filmed at Michael Meredith’s Mr.Morris and Mamakan’s Velskov.
“The Breakout Room and Brewery Studios have worked with iconic kiwi and globally recognised brands including Whittaker’s, Mazda, Fisher & Paykel, and Spotify to name a few, so it was the perfect synergy to collaborate with them to make this submission memorable” said Mordido.
As representatives of Aotearoa, New Zealand, the team were inspired by and weaved traditional Māori food and culture into their entry for the world to see and appreciate. As this was very much a visual entry, all the design aspects needed to be at the highest level.
The team appointed Creative Director & Graphic Designer, Alan Hughes, (Chum Studios and Noble & Sunday), to lead the design process.
“We really wanted to challenge ourselves to create shapes and designs that had not been seen or done before. We were given an international platform so it was our chance to showcase how far we could stretch our creativity.” Mordido noted.
Hughes engaged with award-winning Māori artist Jamie Boynton (Boyton Art), who weaved his art and culture through elements of the dish and serve ware produced, with Emmanual Lee of Dynabyte PC (Food Grade Silicone + 3D Specialist) custom making the teams’ silicone moulds.
“This has been such a challenging competition so far. Our team have never worked with the highlight ingredient at a competition level, but we are proud of our work and outcome” O’Connell explained.
“It has been so rewarding to see Will and Szren progress our ideas into reality, but we are really excited to show the rest of the world the concepts we have been working on.”
Our national culinary athletes will be training hard and fundraising until the international finals that take place in Lyon, France on January 22-23 2023. Team Aotearoa New Zealand will be competing against 23 qualifying teams from around the globe.
