Flags are waving and the world is watching as chefs from around the world gather in Germany to compete in the IKA Culinary Olympics 2020- but Niagara College has two extra reasons to cheer on Canada’s national team.
Two chef professors from the Canadian Food and Wine Institute, Olaf Mertens and Catherine O’Donnell, are ensuring that Team Canada has the recipe for success – Mertens as team coach and O’Donnell as pastry coach.
The world’s largest culinary event, the IKA Culinary Olympics will place between February 14 and 19. While it is held every four years in Germany, 2020 marks its first year in Stuttgart, drawing more than 2,000 chefs from more than 70 countries around the world.
For Mertens and O’Donnell, coaching the team is a volunteer endeavour, but one to which they have dedicated much time and effort over the past two years – leading the team’s culinary program run-throughs and helping to guide their work, as the team gathered for practices in Etobicoke and Oakville. O’Donnell also travelled to Edmonton during the summer to work with the team’s head pastry chef.
Mertens and O’Donnell are no strangers to the IKA Culinary Olympics. They were both coaches for Canada’s junior national culinary team leading up to the 2016 event in Erfurt, Germany, then comprised of students and recent graduates from NC’s CFWI. NC’s team won a gold and a silver medal in 2016 where they placed sixth place overall among 20 junior national teams.
Dean of NC’s Canadian Food and Wine Institute Craig Youdale applauded Mertens and O’Donnell for their leadership in coaching the national team at the 2020 Culinary Olympics.
“This experience for Catherine and Olaf is the next logical step in their development as a coach and judge on a global level. They are now leading a top team on the world stage, at a professional level, at the same time experiencing judging some of best chefs on the planet,” said Youdale. “This illustrates the passion and commitment they have to our industry and the value they gain from this experience comes directly back to our students and our own programs right here in Niagara-on-the-Lake.”
Mertens and O’Donnell both arrived at NC with extensive professional experience.
Prior to joining the CFWI as full-time chef professor in 2010, Mertens was executive chef, founder and partner of three Mississauga HIP Restaurants: On The Curve Hot Stove & Wine Bar, Ten Restaurant & Wine Bar, and West 50 Pourhouse and Grille, Catering from the HIP. Previously he was at Rogue’s Restaurant leading it to being awarded among the Top 40 in Canada. He has authored cookbooks including Cooking from the Hip, and Olaf’s Kitchen: A Master Chef Shares his Passion; and has appeared on Food Network shows Summer’s Best, and Sugar. View his bio here.
O’Donnell is a veteran in the culinary and pastry worlds. Her experience ranged from working at the prestigious King Edward hotel in Toronto to running pastry kitchens for Vintage Inns and Andres Wines, before opening her own French-inspired pastry shop in Niagara-on-the-Lake: Willow Cakes and Pastries. She continues to run Willow Cakes, in addition to guiding students at NC’s CFWI. View her bio here.
InsideNC caught up with O’Donnell and Mertens before they departed for Germany and asked them about their involvement with Team Canada. This is what they had to say:
How did you become involved with coaching Team Canada 2020?
O’Donnell:
I was approached by Judd Simpson who was interested to see if I was interested in helping with the management of the Senior Olympic team for 2020. We started in January of 2018 helping to put a team together that could do this in less than two years.
Mertens:
I was asked by the new management team if I would add my experience to their group of chefs and specialize in creating and the execution of this Canadian contemporary in a competition format to be cooked in Germany. I started coaching at the end of 2017.
What does coaching Team Canada involve?
O’Donnell:
Every two months we spend five days in Toronto with the team, doing run-throughs and helping guide them through their work. During my summer holiday, I flew to Edmonton to work with the Head Pastry Chef on the team and his back up. It is hard to get everyone to work together for the same outcome.
Mertens:
I spend eight hours a week and four days and nights every two months for live practices.
How do you feel about the experience of coaching Team Canada?
O’Donnell:
I enjoy doing this, as it is an opportunity to learn more and to continue to grow and stay current with trends and style of pastries. There is a part of me that hopes I can pass on some skills to others and watch them grow to become better than I have become – for them to become the master and me to become the student.
Mertens:
I am among professional young chefs that are a perfect image of a diverse global Canada. They are on the cutting edge of today’s Canadian cuisine and food trends and ingredients. I am interested in sharing and learning as well as being stimulated with new concepts and skills in today’s cuisine.
What do you find rewarding about the experience?
O’Donnell:
The best reward I have been given is the opportunity to meet some of the most talented chefs in Canada. It is also wonderful to see these young pastry chefs take an idea I have and make it into something of their own. It is a wonderful gift.
Mertens:
Teaching and lifelong learning, new friendships and I started career mentoring.
How do you feel the Team Canada members have been impacted by your personal coaching style?
O’Donnell:
I feel that I have made an impact on them simply by talking with them, guiding them, listening to them. My style of coaching is different, as I believe we have to motivate, encourage, redirect, and inspire. They know that I have their back and will give everything to help them succeed. I am a strong believer that our team is a whole team that one cannot succeed without the other.
Mertens:
This group of diverse Canadians are a very special group of friends that cook or bake with no ego – just pure skill and passion/dedication to our craft, which has my coaching very easy in delivery and has identified that my style of coaching is effective and contagious. I have been instilling to make the five-hour competition look like a ballet dance that is effortless. I am trying to instil what it means to be Canadian in Germany.
Are your students at NC benefitting from this experience?
O’Donnell:
I feel my students benefit from my coaching as I learn new things from everyone I come into contact with. Coaching also teaches me patience to see things evolve and develop, just as we sometimes have to step back and have patience to allow students to grow and develop at there own pace. Coaching has also taught me to teach my students that if I believe in them, they can then believe in themselves. I also have had to learn that not everyone will live up to my standard and that is OK. My standard is for me and not for them.
Mertens:
My students hear and see images of my Team Canada practices. Upon my return, I will have another perspective on the global skill level from see the junior teams work and presentations. I will have some new judging and food evaluation approaches going forward and I am hoping that if the next team for 2024 could now have some NC grads in the roster.
While in Germany, Mertens will also be a rookie apprentice judge for the highest level of competition national professional teams, where he will be training and judging teams with a mentor. The experience will lead him from his current B Culinary Judge status to become an A Culinary Judge.
O’Donnell is also working on becoming on of the few female Canadian pastry chefs in the field of judging.
For information on Culinary Team Canada 2020 visit www.culinaryteamcanada2020.ca/?fbclid=IwAR0-gMYuAs-ZygoU9ldhp5HsywyhnVgOMqUcYm0FGAOIiAIPPCIvHFwwQ5Q
For information on the IKA Culinary Olympics, visit olympiade-der-koeche.com/en/
