Second-year apprentice chef at Tetsuya’s in Sydney, Giles Gabutina, has won the Fonterra Proud to be a Chef competition in Melbourne and took home a $7500 grant to show for it, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Gabutina, a former St Mark’s Catholic College hospitality student, spent two hours creating the award-winning dessert, which was a delicate balance of compressed and steamed pineapple, lime meringue, yoghurt and lime sorbet, mint micro sponge, coconut mousse and pineapple rum consommé.

Gabutina is renowned amongst his peers and colleagues as an innovator, developing his own recipes and desserts in class.

The grant will allow him to travel anywhere in the world to undertake work placements, and Gabutina says he is hoping to travel to Spain and work in the kitchen of restaurant Mugaritz, ranked as one of the world’s best.

Gabutina told The Sydney Morning Herald he didn’t expect to win and is still in shock.

“Looking back on the experience, I am very grateful for all the knowledge I have gained from doing this and all the connections I have made with the people involved,” he said.

“It wasn’t until Year 11 that I decided I wanted to be a apprentice chef, and in particular a pastry chef, because I always loved making my friends their birthday cakes.

“I enjoyed seeing how happy it would make them and decided I wanted to create more desserts and make more people happy.”