Heart and soul go into silver medal

A GROUP of Bendigo chefs have taken home silver medals for their performance in the recent Australian Culinary Federation’s 2023 Restaurant Challenge.

The team of four came from Soul Food Fusion House Café and Resto, a nine-month-old establishment on High Street.

Head chef Antonio Lim said judges and guests loved the team’s food so much they had to serve extra portions.

“We saw three of the guests come to our booth and say oh chef, your meal was lovely,” said Lim.

Team member Cyrus Allarces said the group served over 50 portions of their main, rather than the 44 they were meant to, including for one of the sponsors.

“We didn’t know she was the president of the duck sponsor,” said Allarces. “She was asking if we still had more.”

Lim said he believes Soul Food stood out for their point of difference.

“What we did there was a classic dish with classic presentation,” he said. “I said we have an advantage because all our competitors had modern plates.”

With the gold medal winning competitors from 2022 also taking top prize this year, Lim said the Soul Food team was happy to have taken silver.

“So, who are we to compete with them. We didn’t expect to get the silver, we’re only first-timers,” he said. “For me, I told them we are winners already.”

Allarces said his team’s success has inspired them to start thinking about the competition next year.

“Now that we know the experience and we know how the competitors work we can be better prepared, and of course, they know us already,” he said.

“We are looking forward to the next competition.

The other Soul Food team members were Klein Canoy and Henry Contreras.

Eight teams were picked from across Australia and internationally and were from Melbourne, Tasmania, Western Australia, and Malaysia.