The Fiji Chefs Association is proud of the standard of the chefs in the country.

President Shailesh Naidu said the Fijian chefs are making their presence felt and their thirst for learning new skills is improving.

He made the comments following the closure and the announcement of the winners for the 2015 Salon Culinaire at the 2015 Vodafone and Westpac HOTEC Trade Show at Sofitel Fiji Resort and Spa.

“This year the competition was at a bigger stage level where we had great interests from local chefs,” Mr Naidu said.

“Not only the chefs from mainland but we also had chefs from island resorts such as Plantation Island Resort, Castaway Island Resort and Laucala Island as well participating in the competition.”

He said the competition was further boosted with the presence of international chef judges which set a benchmark for the judging criteria in selecting the best.

There were also educational and training programmes during the three day competition.

Mr Naidu said now they would be focusing in getting the winners of the competition into the International Pacific Rim Global Chefs competition. This is not confirmed yet but discussions will be held shortly.

He commended the effort put in by the 2015 Fiji Chef of the Year Mohammed Shameer Khan.

“Shameer has done everyone proud, he has been working for the past five or six weeks continuously without taking any break, preparing for the competition and attending trainings,” Mr Naidu said.

“He is very hard working and this brought him success.”

He also commended the other chefs who took part in the competition.

“The level playing field for all the chefs during the competition was the same and we saw great potential in everyone,” Mr Naidu said.

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