Executive chef Nigel Stainwall is off to the United States to take part in a global cook off after winning a national competition to find Australia’s best confenence centre chef.

Stainwall, who works with Victorian hospitality company the Glen Erin Group won a national “cook-off“ for the International Association of Conference Centres (IACC) Copper Skillet Competition and will now represent Australia at the global leg of the competition at Salt Lake City in Utah.

The Australia leg of the competition was open to all chefs in Australia employed in IACC member venues. The initial selection process was undertaken by each entrant providing a submission of a themed menu with a written brief on the menu’s suitability for use in a conference venue.

Each participating chef was provided with the same ingredients at individual cooking stations and were provided a few minutes to view these items before selecting their choice of lamb rack, fillet of chicken or fillet of snapper. The task was then to create a dish from the items in their “pantry” within a thirty minute time frame.

Stainwall is executive chef at the Glen Erin Group’s The Grange Restaurant at its Glen Erin Vineyard Retreat at Lancefield in Victoria.