Australian Latvian, a Global Culinary Judge, Explains How Food Is Assessed

Michael Strautmanis, known in Latvian as Miķelis Strautmanis, is an Australian Latvian and one of the most influential judges of international culinary competitions. In an interview with the Latvian outlet NRA, held at a hotel restaurant in Riga, he explained how juries assess food and why taste can never be fully objective.

Who Strautmanis is

Strautmanis was born in 1945 into a Latvian refugee family in Germany and moved with them to Australia at the age of 15. He opened the first French restaurant in Adelaide, La Provençale, twice won gold medals with the Australian team at the world's best-known chef competitions, and founded the Blue Mountains Hotel Management School. The Australian Culinary Federation awarded him the "black hat", which only 14 people have received so far. Worldchefs, a global association of chefs' organisations from 98 countries, named him an honorary lifetime member.

How food is judged

Using a cauliflower cream soup as an example, he would assess taste, balance and appearance. In a competition, he said, taste makes up roughly half of the score, kitchen work and hygiene about 20 percent, and presentation about 10 percent. Juries often split up, with some members judging the kitchen and others the taste.

Objectivity comes from having several judges and local specialists who know how a given country's dish should taste. Strautmanis stresses that national cuisines should be preserved, and Worldchefs has a heritage cooking committee for this reason. He also mentioned the "Black Box" competition, in which participants do not know the ingredients in advance.

A Latvian chef in Singapore

Strautmanis recalled that Dinārs Zvidriņš, head chef at the restaurant Entresol in Riga, competed in Singapore in 2024 in the vegan category and finished 0.7 points short of third place. Strautmanis does not know why it did not go better for him, as he was not on that jury.