High tea and grand five-course dinner events at Le Cordon Bleu Brasserie have long enhanced the festive life of Le Cordon Bleu New Zealand (LCBNZ), but this year celebrations are doubly in order. In 2025, Le Cordon Bleu Paris marks 130 years and in October LCBNZ launches its new NZQA-approved Masters degree. Like the school’s existing Bachelor of Culinary Arts and Business degree, the new Master of Applied Hospitality Management is aimed at those wanting to set up their own culinary businesses.

But at the school’s core remain the very much shorter and more affordable Diploma courses for hands-on chefs, either in general cuisine or pâtisserie. According to Head Chef Lecturer and Technical Director Sébastien Lambert, the teaching philosophy at Le Cordon Bleu New Zealand is, ‘If you want to be the best, you should learn from the best’. Hence, all chefs teaching at Le Cordon Bleu have been associated with respected, and often well-known, contemporary restaurants. For example, until late 2023 Laura Greenfield ran Field & Green, a popular high-end bistro in Wellington. Now she leads the Professional Gastronomic Practice class, members of which cooked a superb French gourmet vegetarian menu at a recent LCBNZ dinner.

Graduates of the school include Vaibhav Vishen of Wellington’s Chaat St, and Joshua Ross, head chef at Bellamys restaurant. A graduate’s gold lapel pin from Le Cordon Bleu speaks of prestige, its star symbol descending from the pre-Revolutionary Order of the Holy Spirit, awarded not only to the usual bigwigs but also to exceptional chefs serving the French king. This medal was worn at the waist, at the end of a long diagonal sash – a blue ribbon known as Le Cordon Bleu.

Today Le Cordon Bleu has 35 institutes located in 20 countries globally. These institutes are part of the world’s largest network of culinary and hospitality schools, which explains why a qualification from Le Cordon Bleu acts as a global passport into a restaurant kitchen anywhere. DAVID BURTON