But when it comes to gourmet cuisine, even Malaysians tend to think the French and Italians have it in the bag.

That may not be entirely true though as Malaysian chefs are quite capable of cooking up banquets that impress even the toughest critics.

After all, how else could a Malaysian team have walked away from the world’s most prestigious cooking competition with a silver medal?

From Feb 2-7, a team of six chefs represented the country at the IKA Culinary Olympics, the largest culinary arts competition, held in Stuttgart, Germany.

For context, the IKA is held every four years, just like the Olympic Games, and sees teams from nations all over the world contending to present the best cuisine.

And despite this being their first time entering the competition, the members of Team PCS Culinary Malaysia cooked up a storm and walked away with the hard-fought silver.

In light of their achievement, FMT Lifestyle spoke with team captain, Edward Chui, to learn just how they cooked their way to victory.

Chui said that outside the competition, he and his teammates are all colleagues from PC Studio Café in Petaling Jaya.

“All of us have been working together for about four years now,” he said, adding that this certainly helped in ensuring good teamwork during the competition.

While this year is the first time the team participated in IKA, they were actually spectators of the competition back in 2020.

“We went there to experience what IKA was like. Back then, we didn’t know what it was. So, we saw the scale and size of it, and what was needed to participate.”

It was this experience that gave the team confidence to participate in the next IKA, resulting in their entry this year.

Specifically, they signed up for the Community Catering category, which requires a menu meant for 120 guests, prepared and cooked within six hours.

Team PCS, among the few representing Asia, was up against over 20 teams from other countries.

To that end, the team worked hard to prepare for a tough fight, training themselves to cook under pressure. Their menu was finalised last July.

Understanding the rules was important as the judges were always on the prowl to lower scores for any infraction.

“We placed a lot of importance on not getting caught breaking any of these rules that they implemented,” he said.

To fulfil the competition menu’s requirements, Team PCS created a spiced poke bowl as a starter, with couscous and tamarind-glazed tempeh.

Chui said that for this year’s competition vegetables were cited as the dish’s main star.

So out came a vegetable trio, consisting of steam seared cabbage, Vichy carrot with edamame bean, and cherry tomato.

The vegetables were served with the option of either beef wellington or mushroom wellington, and paired with either red wine jus or plant-based brown sauce.

Judges and visitors were also treated to a choice of pomme gratin or kaffir croquette, with a French-inspired pastry, Petit Gateux des Roches.

Lastly were the conference snacks, which saw Team PCS producing a nori shrimp roll, a no-crab cake and a coconut cacao bar.

With such delicious offerings, it was a sweet moment of victory when the team was announced as silver medal winners.

“We were very satisfied to get the silver,” said Chui. “We were able to perform against experienced chefs who had more experience in the competition.”

Chui also said the team decided to cook Western dishes to cater to the tastebuds of the mostly European judges.

That said, Team PCS did infuse some Asian flavours by including lemongrass in some dishes.

So, will they aim for gold in 2028? “To be confirmed,” jested Chui, who added that sponsorship from Malaysian culture and food groups would be warmly welcomed in the pursuit of that golden goal.