Pastry Chef Anna Polyviou

Pastry Pioneer Anna Polyviou Recognised as One of Australia's Top Chefs.

Melbourne-born pastry chef, Anna Polyviou is a true globe-trotter. Her career has taken her from Melbourne to London, Paris to Chicago, and now she is back on Australian shores having taken up residency at the Shangri-La Hotel Sydney.

Chef Anna is putting all her creative flair into the pastry department, having introduced uniquely flavoured macarons, handmade chocolate bonbons and high-end desserts to the hotel’s all-day dining restaurant, Café Mix. Along with her team of ten pastry chefs, she has also taken the hotel’s famous High Tea and Chocolate High Tea offering in the Lobby Lounge to new sweet heights.

Chef Anna’s culinary training includes working alongside some of the world’s most talented pastry masterminds, such as Julie Sharp; Nick Paterson; the Queen’s pastry chef, Katherine Boyden from the United Kingdom; Pierre Herme from Pierre Herme Patisserie in Paris; and well-known Bathers Pavilion chef, Serge Dansereau from Sydney.

During her career, she has secured a degree in Culinary Arts in International Pastry from Thames Valley University in London and has trained with pastry chef icons, such as Kirsten Tibballs, Jean-Marie Auboine and Jerome Landrieu. Chef Anna has won a number of prestigious awards, including the Nadell Trophy for the UK’s Dessert of the Year and the Culinary Academy Award for Excellence for Pastry. Polyviou is also the chairman and one of the founders of the Sydney Pastry Chef Club, an industry-learning programme for executive pastry chefs launched in 2011.

Elegance, technical perfection and a desire to enjoy herself are among the gifts that the Australian pastry chef brings to her work.

"I kick-started my career in cooking at Hotel Sofitel Melbourne, where my only interest were the flashing lights at clubs; dancing and having fun. Then I was asked to enter a competition in pastry because the team of four required a pastry chef and they needed an apprentice. I was a kitchen chef and had no idea about cooking anything sweet. So I trained so I wouldn’t let my team down and the more I got involved in pastry, the more I loved it. Things turned around and I found my love for pastry!

I stayed at Sofitel and finished my apprenticeship. I was then awarded the title of best apprentice in the Hotel, which led to winning the Les Toque competition for best apprentice within Victoria which got me a scholarship to London. There, I worked at Claridges hotel in London along with doing University in Culinary Arts in pastry. I won gold in different culinary competitions and won best dessert in the UK which gave me an opportunity to go work in Paris with Pierre Herme.

I then returned to Australia and did another competition for best plated chocolate dessert, won that and got a trip to Chicago to do training. I was at Bathers Pavilion for five years as the pastry chef there, which was a great stage of my career. I’ve been involved in cookbooks, judging, writing for magazines and I am also the founder of the Sydney Pastry Club.

I love how food brings people together along with emotions that flow within the room after eating and tasting different items. During my childhood, my family was forever cooking and the aromas that traveled within the house are indescribable. We have such great memories."

Awards

2000– Wins the Best Apprentice in Victoria run by Les Toques Blonc
2004 – Dessert of the Year (The Nadell Trophy)
2004 – The Culinary Academy Award of Excellence for pastry
2008 – Best Chocolate Dessert at the Callebaut Chocolate Competition of Australia