A Northallerton catering student proved hard work was proof of the pudding after wowing judges in a prestigious culinary competition in Venice with his dessert and main course.
Darlington College student Batu Sunbul was one of 25 contestants to reach the last stage of the CombiGuru contest, hosted by Italian oven manufacturers Unox at its Italian headquarters.
And he was able to take his mother Elaine to Venice with him, fulfilling both their dreams to visit the UNESCO World Heritage site.
Batu had just three hours to prepare, cook and serve a two course meal of main and dessert dishes from a box of mystery ingredients.
He impressed judges with his main course of pork fillet, baba ganoush and fondant potatoes, complete with a wasabi feta drizzle, followed by vanilla pana cotta with almond biscuit and strawberries.
Just 2.5 points separated him from the runner-up as he took a well-earned third place in the competition with 100.5 points from a possible 120.
“The whole experience was really good,” said Harrogate-born Batu, a Level 2 food and beverage student, who lives in Northallerton and also works at the town’s Fox and Hounds pub.
“Because I’d practised a lot of dishes I didn’t really feel pressured in the competition and I now know for the future what I need to do to pick up the extra points I need for a higher placing. I was hoping to win but third was a fair result as the contestants were really good and all the food looked great.
“We had various nice meals out and had a tour of Venice. I really enjoyed competing and my mum loved Venice and was fascinated by being shown round the Unox HQ and the latest equipment.”
His tutor Dawn Cobb-Neate said: “This has been an incredible opportunity for Batu who has done amazingly well to secure third place in such a fiercely contested competition. I think he has a very bright future to look forward to whether that is in other competitions or in fulfilling his dream of running his own restaurant.”
Twenty two Darlington College Level 2-5 students took part in the competition qualifying challenge in which they had to answer a host of questions about cooking and the industry.
Batu worked his way through 54 levels of the online questionnaire and took the honours with an impressive score of 1,803 points.
Batu, whose father is Turkish, has been cooking since he gave up playing football five years ago and one day would love to go to Turkey to study its cuisine and then open his own restaurant in Harrogate.
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