Peter first set foot in a professional kitchen at age 15 by scoring a dishwashing gig in a Palmerston North restaurant. Not that he planned to be a chef; he just wanted to earn a bit of money. But cutting through the steam and soap suds, his employer detected a culinary talent; signs of the skills he had developed since learning to cook from his mother when he was a child.

“They must have spotted something in me because I was offered the opportunity to do an apprenticeship,” says Peter. “I took it even though I was still a secondary school student and had no idea what I wanted to do for a career.”

The apprenticeship turned out to be a perfect recipe for Peter, who also happens to be a gifted musician and wanted a job where he could satisfy both his artistic and athletic abilities.

He says: “Cooking was the first art form I found where I could express myself. I also did a lot of sports growing up, so I enjoy the physical aspect of it.  To be a good chef, you need to be very fast and also have a very delicate touch.”

Some people pursue a chef’s career by racking up a student loan at a polytechnic or a cooking school. But for Peter, and many other talented young chefs, nothing beats training on-job.

“When you do something for real, there are consequences if the standards are not met. In a restaurant there’s no room for errors. It’s very mentally challenging,” he says.

As well as earning as you learn, you gain the real skills you need if you want to be a success in a working kitchen. You learn how to work to tight deadlines, meet the demands of head chefs, and serve dishes to high standards for real paying guests. It can be a pressure cooker environment with zero tolerance for mistakes, which means that if you’ve got what it takes, you learn all the tricks and the right way to do things properly and a lot faster, says Peter.

Speaking of head chefs, Jono Mawley is executive chef at the Copthorne in Palmerston North, where Peter is completing his apprenticeship. Jono has known the young chef since he started out, mentoring him along the way in everything from how to create perfect pastry to the clearest consume.  

It’s gratifying to see the impressive transition from kitchen-hand to award-winning chef, says Jono: “He’s a very different guy. When he started, he was extremely shy and quiet, but he’s developed a lot of confidence and is great to have around. Because of his skill and passion for food, I don’t have to look over his shoulder because I know he knows the standard.”

Peter’s magical winning dish was a delicately designed and detailed symphony of delicious colours and flavours: tender roasted Saveur duck breast served with jet black rice, caramel dark medjool date, bright green snap peas, crisp watercress salad and the sweet intensity of beetroot chutney, finished with a delightfully light and frothy top note of Cointreau & Nicolas Feuillatte Champagne sabayon.

For his next trick, Peter will soon complete his apprenticeship and become a professional chef, ready for culinary adventures around the globe. His first stop is to savour the exotic flavours, discover different cuisine styles and meet some of the world’s best chefs at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival 2016 – his prize for winning ServiceIQ Apprentice Chef of the Year.

To wannabe chefs, he says: “You need to be personally driven and self-motivated to be successful. Get a job in the industry to get started. If you want to be a chef you have to learn the basic skills before you go further. I did a lot of dishes. Don’t be disheartened if you have to do the dishes for ages.”

And to be a great chef? The star apprentice takes advice from Thomas Keller, another world-famous chef and owner of ‘Per Se’ restaurant in New York and ‘The French Laundry’ in California.

“All you have to do is lots of little things well,” he says. Just like his award-winning dish.  

Get the job, and then get an apprenticeship

As the official training organisation for the hospitality industry, ServiceIQ offers cooking apprenticeships for people who are already working in hospitality and want to upskill and qualify to be a chef.