Cameron Davies, owner and award winning head chef of the Fat Duck Gastropub in Te Anau, has represented New Zealand to win the Pacific Rim regional semi-final's Global Chef section of the Worldchefs Global Chefs Challenge (WGCC) in Auckland on Tuesday (27 Jun).

The bi-annual WGCC competition draws chefs from up to 70 countries, to compete in seven regional semi-finals.

Each regions' best two global (senior) chefs, pastry chef, young chef and vegan chef then head to the world finals.

Davies and runner-up Australian chef Andrew Ballard, will now travel to the WGCC world finals in Singapore in October 2024, a competition that will see them go head-to-head with some of the best chefs in the world.

Davies said he was completely blown away and humbled by the regional win.

He said that while he hadn't expected it, he had put a lot into it.

"It's taken six to eight weeks of training... and three trips to Christchurch."

Davies' 3-course competition menu consisted of a seafood appetiser, lamb main and chocolate dessert served with a cup of tea, all prepped and cooked for 4 people in 3 hours.

However Davies said the world finals would be more complex as each finalist, assisted by a junior chef, cooked 4 courses for 12 people over seven hours.

"The training for that is going to be quite intense."

Davies said he would need to manage logistics so he could train with his Christchurch based coach, Ara Institute of Canterbury tutor Mark Sycamore, and whoever becomes his junior chef.

"There is going to be a lot of dish design and development."

"There'll [also] be plenty of practices involved... so the work really starts now," he said.