In March 2016, Kevin Micheli secured victory at the Austrian Bocuse d'Or selection, one of the most prestigious cooking competitions in the world. At just 25 years old, the Vorarlberg native earned the right to represent Austria at the European finals in Budapest — the next step on the road to the grand finale in Lyon.
Micheli, then working as Chef Patissier at the one-Michelin-star Einstein in St. Gallen, competed alongside his commis Paul Berberich and with support from Anna Maria de Oliveira-Zeisner, a student at the Hertha Firnberg School where the Austrian finals took place.
The competition required each team to prepare a fish course on 14 plates and a meat course on a platter within five and a half hours. Micheli impressed the jury with a cured sturgeon paired with caviar for the fish course, and a venison loin accompanied by celeriac, truffle, and foie gras for the meat.
The panel of judges read like a who's who of Austrian gastronomy: president Rudi Obauer, co-president Heinz Reitbauer of Restaurant Steirereck, coaches Thomas Dorfer of Landhaus Bacher and Thomas Göls of Hill Restaurant, Karl Obauer, and Tommy Eder-Dananic of Restaurant Ikarus at Hangar-7, among many others.
Micheli's career path to that point already included formative stints at some of the best addresses in the German-speaking world: his apprenticeship at Wirtschaft zum Schützenhaus in Feldkirch, followed by Landhaus Bacher, Hangar-7 under Roland Trettl, Hotel Bareiss, Restaurant Guth with Thomas Scheucher, and the Stromburg under Johann Lafer. He was also the 2013 Cooking World Champion and winner of the Zepter Young Chefs Austria 2014.
This article was originally published by Falstaff.
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