December 13, 2011
Concours de Chefs, Antigua Charter Yacht Show
Winner for yachts over 160 feet: Chef Tim MacDonald, M/Y Huntress
Chef Tim MacDonald took the “banquet” theme to heart in the Concours de Chefs in Antigua and created a full array of appetizers, entrees, sides and desserts, more than 25 items in all. With his judging occurring at 11:30 a.m., he just didn’t sleep the night before.
“The best thing to do is work through the night,” he said. “The way to mess up is to put yourself under pressure. You do all you can and then in the last minute, say the last half hour, produce the final product.”
A few of his submissions: cold lobster medallions in mango and Kaffir lime leaf sauce; soused local conch with pink grapefruit and white rum-soused salsa and avocado; jerked chicken and barbecued pineapple wrapped in banana leaf with green papaya and hot mint coleslaw; and wholegrain rice, black bean and sugar snap pea salad.
He actually entered to win the coffee competition with a special cake designed in honor of his fiancee: Tatiana’s white angel Carib Coffee celebration cake with frozen cafe latte-Carib Coffee granita and coconut snowball. (Chef Heather on M/Y Numptia won the coffee prize for this size vessel category.)
Second place in this vessel size category went to Chef Heather Kaniuk on M/Y Numptia. Third place went to Chef Thomas Frank on M/Y Passion.
MacDonald’s secret was not talking to any other chefs ahead of time. Comparing menus only would have caused him to second guess or make last-minute changes, he said. He just put himself in a “cone of silence” and did what he does on every charter.
“It’s nothing that I don’t do for the owner of charter guests,” he said. (His captain confirmed that.)
Also, MacDonald said he focused on presentation, making sure each dish looked as good as it could with vivid Caribbean colors and that each Caribbean ingredient was highlighted in the dish’s name: sugar cane shrimp with roasted plantain and sorrel jam, for example, and seared scallops in the half shell with scotch bonnet sauce.
“The judges only had 30 minutes so they didn’t even taste everything,” he said. “It was mostly about looks.”
MacDonald began mentally preparing about a month ago while still in a shipyard in Savannah. He researched the contest, Caribbean ingredients, even the judges.
His favorite part of the competition was the desserts. Main courses as usually a big chunk of meat, he said, “not very exciting.” He prefers starters and desserts.
“People lose a lot of points on charter with desserts,” he said. “They get lazy at it.”
As with the other winners, he acknowledged that the hardest part was the timing.
“Going into that redline fatigue stage -- you’ve been on your feet for 12-13 hours -- and that’s when you need to be at your best,” he said. “Getting the timing right was definitely the hardest part. I didn’t want to overcook the ham or the snapper.”
MacDonald has always known he wanted to be a chef, beginning from his early teen-age years walking the wealthy districts of Melbourne, Australia, and eyeing treats in the window of the patisseries.
“I wanted to eat them, but I couldn’t, so I went home and got my mother’s cookbook and started making them.”
He worked nearly 20 years in French restaurants and star-rated restaurants, learning his craft until a friend spend a year in Greece, working partly in a villa and partly on a yacht.
“I quit Australia and the restaurant lifestyle and went to Antibes,” he said. He’s been working on yachts now for about six years, including the past 16 months on Huntress, a 15-year-old Feadship. He’s also worked on the 50m Feadship M/Y Charisma, the Christensen M/Y Marathon, the 47m M/Y Allegria and others.
“My goal is to do a new build, be part of something new, that charters.”
To read about the winner of the 100-160-foot division, click here.
To read about the winner from vessels less than 100 feet, click here.
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