Leadership Academy Session One Recap

Session I – Iron Chef Competition

Harborview Restaurant | Ocean Street, Hyannis

The first session of each Leadership Academy is always designed for the class to get to know their colleagues while working within the team dynamics. This year we started with an Iron Chef style competition and ‘BAM’ - this group showed a cohesiveness among their peers right from the start!

“This is definitely one of the best classes I’ve had.” stated Michael Gustafson, restaurant owner, judge and creator of this local competition. “I’ve seen some people immediately start throwing ingredients into the pan without giving it a thought. These teams really worked well together!”

There was a lot of good-natured competitiveness but a real effort to create dishes that looked, smelled and tasted terrific, all within an hour’s time. Team Provincetown was the ultimate winner by just a few points (with help from their teammate, REALTOR® & former professional Chef Joe Hartung - which was not part of the plan when we designed the program!). However, while judging, Mike gave kudos to the Nantucket Team exclaiming, “I would eat all of this!”

As iconic French chef Julia Child has said, “Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.”