Three local hospitality students have dedicated their semester break to perfecting their skills as they prepare to battle it out in an elite national culinary competition.
Waiariki Bay of Plenty Polytechnic culinary arts students Shivansh Uppal, Adrian Soriano and Tania Williams will compete against 30 other hospitality students to impress a panel of top industry judges at the prestigious Nestle Toque d'Or competition in Auckland next week.
The teams of three students must cook and serve, within an allotted timeframe, six covers of a three course meal that they have developed themselves. At the same time, their performance is marked by the judges using WorldChefs International Judging Standards.
Mr Soriano said he dropped out of university, where he was doing a business degree, to pursue cooking at Waiariki.
"My family had a restaurant in the Philippines so from the time I was 4 or 5 I was in the kitchen.
"For me, cooking is not a job, it's a passion."
Mr Uppal said cooking was something he always wanted to learn.