Top apprentices: (From left) Brendon Walter, Stephen Hillman, Colin Wilson, and Kah Wai (Buddha) Lo.
FOUR, not two, apprentice chefs are France-bound to work with the Michelin star chef Thierry Marx after winning Restaurant & Catering Victoria’s Thierry Marx Career Development Award for 2010.
The organisers of the competition that’s now in its fourth year said this year’s entrants had been of such high quality that the number of winners was doubled from the usual two in an unprecedented move.
After hours of deliberation the judges had been unable to split the top four finalists. “The standard of entrants was exceptional with all apprentices showing both skills and attitudes well in excess of their years,” said R&CV’s awards coordinator Anne Kennedy.
The four include Brendon Walter (Meadowbank Estate Winery, Tasmania), Colin Wilson (Chateau Yering Historic House Hotel, Yarra Valley), Stephen Hillman (Mercato, Daylesford) and Kah Wai (Buddha) Lo (Matteo's Restaurant, North Fitzroy, Melbourne).
Kennedy said Marx had no hesitation in agreeing to an extra two candidates. Two winners will head to his Bordeaux-based restaurant Cordeillan-Bages next month followed by the others in August.
