The Rotary Club of Wollongong supported a unique dining experience initiated by three young men who are currently the best for their age in the Illawarra region in their respective trades.
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These young men combined to pull together a degustation dinner of five separate course on August 20 at the Sage Hotel, Wollongong.
It was a night to be remembered - one where all of the 100 guests who attended were able to view first-hand, by live-streaming, the action in the kitchen.
Each of the courses specially designed, prepared and presented, accompanied by a selection of wines over a period of four hours.
The majority of the food was donated by the local suppliers and the Sage Hotel, the waiting staff donated their time to serve, supported by the kitchen team.
Throughout the evening, guests were also entertained by young local talent Nathan Lamont who has featured on The Voice for the last two seasons.
The function was hosted by the WorldSkills Illawarra Committee and The Sage Hotel, to raise funds to send the 26 members of the Illawarra team of young tradespeople and their training mentors, mostly Illawarra TAFE trade teachers, to the National Competition to be held in Melbourne on October 6-8.
Over recent weeks, between a trivia night and this event, Rotary has been able to support by attending and donating raffle prizes to assist in these fund-raising endeavours.
Local Rotary Clubs also have “adopted” eight of these young people, sponsoring them to attend the Rotary Leadership Awards program in January earlier this year and will continue to share their journey to and during the National Competition.
Chair of the Illawarra Committee Troy Everett said the young tradespeople were working well as a team and training hard.
Troy Hindmarsh, 21, pastry chef, of Gumnut Patisseries at Mittagong said: “It is great to see everyone here to support WorldSkills, great advertising, getting good publicity.”
When asked about creating the dessert he explained that it was important to use fresh local ingredients, especially fresh raspberries and he “just wanted to make something special to ‘wow’ everybody.”
Hamish Gibbs, 21, butcher from Crookwell, provided the pork for the dinner.
“I am really excited to have the opportunity to work with the team in the kitchen – it is a whole new experience for me,” he said.
Billy Fox, 19, is a young local chef to be followed very closely.
Billy was recently chosen as the Apprentice of the Year for the Illawarra region and is now a finalist in the NSW Training Awards to be held on September 8.
