The top gong and best young pastry chefs from around the globe battled it out in May to be named 2017 Savour Patissier of the Year.

For the second year in a row, young top gong pastry chefs from around the world travelled to Melbourne to compete for the title of 2017 Savour Patissier of the Year. However, the honour went to local pastry chef Santiago Cuyugan.

The 24-year-old pastry chef and chocolatier from South Melbourne’s Bibelot not only received the highest combined score across each of the categories: tarts, eclairs, desserts, and entremets, but also claimed the individual category for entremets, beating out competitors from Belgium, Sweden and the US.

Competition creator and Australia’s top chocolatier Kirsten Tibballs said it was incredible to see so many people come together in support of the competition.

“I started the Savour Patissier of the Year competition with the aim of developing a platform to recognise and showcase the talent of both national and international pastry chefs,” she said.

“I’m truly honoured to have had the best in the world at this year’s event.”

Santiago, who last year placed 13th in the competition, said the win had come as a surprise.

“I had actually won the best cake category, and I was surprised by that as well, but I thought that was nice and I was happy enough with that. Then they announced the overall winner and I was even more surprised,” he said.

“My only goal was to do better than last year. After the first pastry chefs competition I knew I wanted to do it again so right away I started researching and developing concepts and ideas, and started developing recipes and solid ideas in January.”

As part of the win, Santiago received $50,000 in cash and prizes including a trip to Hong Kong to train at Ravifruit with pastry chef Marike Van Beurden, as well as a place on the Ghana Cocoa Plantation Tour in October.

“I’m definitely looking forward to both. I’m a big fan of travel and new experiences. This opportunity is something I’ll value quite a bit,” he said.

See a full list of category winners in Kirsten Tibballs’ column on page 24.