The 2019 Columbus Coffee Master Chef Competition was held at the Auckland Seafood School, with our Columbus Coffee Executive Chef Sean Mackenzie and Chef Trainer Ishan Shanbhag overseeing the event. We had 8 finalists all competing for the top spot.
It was a fantastic afternoon where the chefs were tasked to make two dishes. The first was to produce the food from the recipe they had submitted when entering the competition, the second was to produce a dish from the ingredients in their mystery box.
The competition was judged by four experienced chef competition judges from the Auckland Chef School, from Southern Hospitality and Bidfood.
The eight chefs taking part in the competition were:
- Trudie Campbell - Upper Hutt
- Ava Xiong - Cambridge
- Sheryl Corner - Ferrymead
- Verena Widley - Upper Hutt
- Norris Vargns - Auckland Hospital
- Louise de la Rue - Warkworth
- Tapu Barua - Queen Street
- Angel Aure - Smales Farm, Auckland
The competition was extremely tight with only 5 points separating the 8 chefs and only ½ a point separating first from second. The judges were extremely complimentary about the quality of the chefs.
Whilst it was truly an event when all the competitors did amazingly well, we did have a winner congratulations to Trudie Campbell from Columbus Coffee Upper Hutt café who was crowned ‘Columbus MasterChef’ for 2019. The top four were as follows:
- 1st Runner Up- Ava Xiong from Columbus Coffee Cambridge
- 2nd Runner Up - Sheryl Corner from Columbus Coffee Ferrymead
- 3rd Runner Up Verena Widley from Columbus Coffee Upper Hutt
