Tutors play a key role in making the champion chefs of tomorrow
In 2016 The Cornell Education Group participated in New Zealand Chef’s Hospitality championship to compete with all major schools across New Zealand. Participating in such championships, that too in different categories needs more than just talent, it needs so much of passion and training from highly skilled and qualified teachers and most importantly industrial experienced tutors to mentor the students guiding them towards success.
Tutors at Cornell Education Group come from internationally renowned hotels and property experts from different parts of the country. These tutors spend extremely long hours and train hard to bring the best from their students.
Tutors Sasidhar (Sash) Thathapudi , Vijay Naranswamy, Raj Balkrishnan and Anthony D’ Cunha are from the cookery department while Mohit Sharma, Larson Menzes come from Hospitality department.
Working for five-star hotels in India as a chef is not an easy task and requires not just cooking expertise but the ability to perform multiple tasks, have competitive management skills and give their best performance.
Cornell provides an amazing opportunity and platform for the Indian students to come to New Zealand and learn from its practical classes, challenging modules and most of all the skill to run a restaurant cum bar on their own with minimal supervision.
The tutors are dedicated and are willing to walk theextra mile for the students to get their dream jobs in this highly respected hospitality industry and with immense opportunities in New Zealand. Most of the chefs also work part time and do casual jobs in the industry to keep up their skills up to the market needs.
It is expected that there will be a lot of new hotels and such properties coming to New Zealand in the next few years which will create a huge demand for the skilled migrants especially in cookery and hospitality sector, which is one of the departments with a wide range of opportunities.
Profile of the tutor Sasidhar Thathapudi:
Sasidhar Thathapudi lovingly known was ‘Sash’ among the students and the management is one of the Cornell’s most widely experienced tutors. Sash finished his Hotel Management studies in India and worked for the Taj Group of Hotels in Chennai. In the year 2000 Sash won the award for the ‘Best Youngest Chef’ at South India Culinary Competitions held in Chennai, India. He then moved to Saudi Arabia to work for Four Seasons Hotel in Riyadh, then for P&O Cruise Australia and Thistle Group of Hotels in London.
Sash decided to continue his further studies and he moved to Switzerland to do his graduation in European Culinary Management with Honours at International Management Institute- Luzern (IMI Luzern) affiliated with Manchester Metropolitan University United Kingdom. He worked at Hotel President Wilson Geneva, one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, and in 2010 he finally moved to Queenstown, New Zealand, as a chef at Heritage Hotel.
In 2012 he moved to Auckland and worked with Stamford Plaza, a five-Star luxury hotel and soon opened a restaurant for Scenic Hotels in Blenheim called Mondrian. He took his role as an executive-chef with Scenic Southern Cross Hotel in Dunedin which is a flagship property of Scenic Hotel Group.
In 2014, he started his career as a chef lecturer with the Cornell Education Group as he felt the need to share his experience and knowledge with young and upcoming chefs. Since then he has continuously put his effort to train the students and to get the best out of them. After having 15 years of industrial experience from different 5-Star hotels, luxury cruise ships and fine dining restaurants around the world, imparting his wisdom was one noble decision he made.
Sash recently finished his studies with Southern Institute of Technology for National Certificate in Adult Education and Training which gives a broad knowledge about teaching the young learners in a professional manner. He is also a member of NZ Chefs Association and acted as a judge for several culinary competitions.
Winning in the competition needs lots of commitment, apart from regular work hours the tutors need to do a lot of work to train the students, especially for live categories which gives the participants only one hour to create four identical dishes by following proper health and safety policies, hygiene guidelines. More importantly, judges observe the participants very closely and deduct marks for any every minor mistake.
There is no minimum or maximum hours for training, the more each individual practices, the better he performs and gets closer to the award.
Cornell Group has the industry experts to add to their success stories and to keep the students up to date with current industry standards.
The end result has made Cornell Education Group winner of the Best Training Establishment of the Year Award for both 2016 and 2017 with a gold medal in all categories to their name.
The students are preparing with more energy to get themselves ready for the 2018 New Zealand Hospitality Championship. The tutors are getting ready for their trial sessions for the big event scheduled from August 13 to 17 at ASB Showgrounds in Auckland.
In 2016 The Cornell Education Group participated in New Zealand Chef’s Hospitality championship to compete with all major schools across New Zealand. Participating in such championships, that too in different categories needs more than just talent, it needs so much of passion and training from...
In 2016 The Cornell Education Group participated in New Zealand Chef’s Hospitality championship to compete with all major schools across New Zealand. Participating in such championships, that too in different categories needs more than just talent, it needs so much of passion and training from highly skilled and qualified teachers and most importantly industrial experienced tutors to mentor the students guiding them towards success.
Tutors at Cornell Education Group come from internationally renowned hotels and property experts from different parts of the country. These tutors spend extremely long hours and train hard to bring the best from their students.
Tutors Sasidhar (Sash) Thathapudi , Vijay Naranswamy, Raj Balkrishnan and Anthony D’ Cunha are from the cookery department while Mohit Sharma, Larson Menzes come from Hospitality department.
Working for five-star hotels in India as a chef is not an easy task and requires not just cooking expertise but the ability to perform multiple tasks, have competitive management skills and give their best performance.
Cornell provides an amazing opportunity and platform for the Indian students to come to New Zealand and learn from its practical classes, challenging modules and most of all the skill to run a restaurant cum bar on their own with minimal supervision.
The tutors are dedicated and are willing to walk theextra mile for the students to get their dream jobs in this highly respected hospitality industry and with immense opportunities in New Zealand. Most of the chefs also work part time and do casual jobs in the industry to keep up their skills up to the market needs.
It is expected that there will be a lot of new hotels and such properties coming to New Zealand in the next few years which will create a huge demand for the skilled migrants especially in cookery and hospitality sector, which is one of the departments with a wide range of opportunities.
Profile of the tutor Sasidhar Thathapudi:
Sasidhar Thathapudi lovingly known was ‘Sash’ among the students and the management is one of the Cornell’s most widely experienced tutors. Sash finished his Hotel Management studies in India and worked for the Taj Group of Hotels in Chennai. In the year 2000 Sash won the award for the ‘Best Youngest Chef’ at South India Culinary Competitions held in Chennai, India. He then moved to Saudi Arabia to work for Four Seasons Hotel in Riyadh, then for P&O Cruise Australia and Thistle Group of Hotels in London.
Sash decided to continue his further studies and he moved to Switzerland to do his graduation in European Culinary Management with Honours at International Management Institute- Luzern (IMI Luzern) affiliated with Manchester Metropolitan University United Kingdom. He worked at Hotel President Wilson Geneva, one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, and in 2010 he finally moved to Queenstown, New Zealand, as a chef at Heritage Hotel.
In 2012 he moved to Auckland and worked with Stamford Plaza, a five-Star luxury hotel and soon opened a restaurant for Scenic Hotels in Blenheim called Mondrian. He took his role as an executive-chef with Scenic Southern Cross Hotel in Dunedin which is a flagship property of Scenic Hotel Group.
In 2014, he started his career as a chef lecturer with the Cornell Education Group as he felt the need to share his experience and knowledge with young and upcoming chefs. Since then he has continuously put his effort to train the students and to get the best out of them. After having 15 years of industrial experience from different 5-Star hotels, luxury cruise ships and fine dining restaurants around the world, imparting his wisdom was one noble decision he made.
Sash recently finished his studies with Southern Institute of Technology for National Certificate in Adult Education and Training which gives a broad knowledge about teaching the young learners in a professional manner. He is also a member of NZ Chefs Association and acted as a judge for several culinary competitions.
Winning in the competition needs lots of commitment, apart from regular work hours the tutors need to do a lot of work to train the students, especially for live categories which gives the participants only one hour to create four identical dishes by following proper health and safety policies, hygiene guidelines. More importantly, judges observe the participants very closely and deduct marks for any every minor mistake.
There is no minimum or maximum hours for training, the more each individual practices, the better he performs and gets closer to the award.
Cornell Group has the industry experts to add to their success stories and to keep the students up to date with current industry standards.
The end result has made Cornell Education Group winner of the Best Training Establishment of the Year Award for both 2016 and 2017 with a gold medal in all categories to their name.
The students are preparing with more energy to get themselves ready for the 2018 New Zealand Hospitality Championship. The tutors are getting ready for their trial sessions for the big event scheduled from August 13 to 17 at ASB Showgrounds in Auckland.
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