Second-year students from the Cape Town Hotel School scooped top awards at the Reach for Young Stars competition.
Organised by Showcook, the competition is an annual event which sees South Africa’s young and aspiring chefs, sommeliers and head waiters compete in a number of exciting challenges.
This year’s challenge took place at the One&Only Hotel in Cape Town and saw students wow judges with their culinary and hospitality skills.
The winning starter was a vanilla prawn tortellini prepared by the school’s Sascha Kranz and Grant Glasser.
Gabrielle le Roux and Merissa Naicker were named top sommelier and top head waiter, respectively by the judging panel made up of industry experts.
Other awards went to Lisa Batty, runner-up in the head waiter category, as well as Cobus Bester and Siyabonga Mlonzi, who both came third in the sommelier category.
The keynote speaker at the awards ceremony was Minister of Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk, while the awards were presented by Dr Vash Mungal-Singh, CEO of the Heart and Stroke Foundation South Africa.
Judges of the event were Reuben Riffel, Nick Patmore, Marieta Human, Penelope Horwood, Luke Dale-Roberts, Wolfgang Leyrer and Michael Olivier.
Cape Town Hotel School Director Alan Romburgh recently hosted a celebratory lunch for the victorious students and the staff members who coached them.
Romburgh commended the students for doing extremely well in the competition.
He says judges were so impressed by their high standards that they voted CPUT as the best hotel school in the Western Cape.
Reflecting on the experience, the students says while they were nervous at first they later enjoyed taking part in the competition as they had an opportunity to put the skills they learnt at the school to test.
By Kwanele Butana
Written by CPUT News
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