TAFE Gippsland culinary trainer Kellie Smith and her crew of talented young chefs are bound for Southeast Asia next week for the 2024 Worldchefs Congress.

Kellie will travel to Singapore as the Australian Culinary Federation’s Young Chef mentor for eight young chefs from around Australia, representing their home country at this prestigious event.

Kellie said it’s the largest international biannual gathering of chefs with more than 5000 chefs attending from over 100 countries.

“TAFE Gippsland will be represented by three Certificate III in Commercial Cookery apprentices – past and present – who have been selected for this amazing experience, where they’ll get to learn, connect with other chefs and broaden their culinary horizons over the five-day congress,” Kellie said.

“They’ll also get to see the Global Chefs Challenge, where the world’s top chefs meet to compete in four competition categories. Past apprentices Darcy Nicoll from the Toora Hotel and Brendan Woodroffe from Hogget Kitchen will be coming, alongside current student Jesse Payne who also works at the Toora Hotel. It will be a life changing experience for all of them.”

Darcy, a Toora local, Jesse from Fish Creek and Yinnar local Brendan all head off to Singapore with Kellie tomorrow (Friday, October 18) for the five-day event, which runs from October 20-25 .