News & Views
Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud Chef Wins Patisserie Championship Aoife Noonan, Pastry Chef with Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, won The Valrhona Pâtisserie Championship 2014, which was held in DIT Cathal Brugha Street on June 10th. The Championship aims to promote and advance standards among pastry chefs on the island of Ireland. Aoife saw off stiff competition from the other four finalists - Patrick O’Mara, The Lady Helen Restaurant, Yoann Avignon, L’Atitude 51, Paula Hannigan, GMIT, and Norma Kelly, DIT - to win the fourth edition of this award. The theme for the 2014 championship was ‘StresseD’ (StreetRestaurantDessert). Aoife was required to showcase the upside of stress; the stress that helps us to create and break new ground. Using Valrhona chocolate, Aoife had four hours on the day to produce two interpretations of her dessert - a plated Restaurant Dessert and a Street Food version - which illustrated the StresseD theme. The jury, presided over by international judge and Executive Pastry Chef at the Four Seasons Hotel in London, Loic Carbonnet, also included Benoit Lorge, Chocolatier and Proprietor of Lorge Chocolates, Kenmare, Cyril Borie, Chocolatier and Proprietor of L’Art du Chocolat, Kildare, Freda Wolfe, Culinary Manager of Odaios Foods, and Philippe Verdelet, Head Pastry Chef of Carton House, Maynooth. Food blogger Ketty Elisabeth was the Street Food judge on the day. The competition was overseen by Andrew Gravett,
(l-r): Norma Kelly, Yoann Avignon, Aoife Noonan, Paula Hannigan and Patrick O’Mara.
Winning dessert, ‘Java’ Cake
Northern European Pastry Chef for Valrhona. Aoife’s winning Restaurant Dessert, titled The ‘Java’ Cake, consisted of a Coeur De Guanaja Cremeux and Espresso Jelly on a Chocolate Pâté Sablée Base, completed with a Jivara opaline tube filled with a Tia Maria Espuma and accompanied by a Guanaja & Tonka bean sorbet. Her Street Food version, ‘The Espresso Shot’, was a Tia Maria sphere coated in Ivoire chocolate and rolled in Coeur De Guanaja Sablée, crushed coffee beans and Jivara Tuile shards. She
Winning dessert, The Espresso Shot, Street Food Version
used four different Valrhona chocolates to create her Restaurant Dessert; Coeur de Guanaja P125, Araguani 72%, Guanaja 70% and Jivara 40%. Aoife’s winning dessert is now featured on the à la carte menu of Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud. This is the fourth edition of the Championship and the second time that a pastry chef from Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud has won. Aoife joins a top line-up of previous winners, including Marion Dony, former Pastry Chef at Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud
(2012), Darren Hogarty, Pastry Chef at Chapter One Restaurant (2010) and Ludovic Lantier, former Pastry Chef at Powerscourt Hotel (2009). As the 2014 winner Aoife will receive a three day Stage in l’Ecole du Grand Chocolat Valrhona in Tain l’Hermitage, France, including meals, accommodation and flights, a tasting menu in Maison Pic, a three star Michelin Restaurant in Valence, and a copy of Au Coeur des Saveurs by Frederic Bau, the Executive Pastry Chef and Director of l’Ecole du Grand Chocolat, Valrhona.
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