Mr Murray has been at Centennial Vineyard as head chef for the past three months, and is already bubbling over with ideas for using his connections with high-profile chefs to promote the Southern Highlands.

In a boost to his plans, Mr Murray and Centennial's junior chef Josh Lips took away a bronze medal in the Chef of the Year award at the recent Melbourne Food and Wine Show.

The competition involved cooking a two-course meal for four with 12 surprise ingredients in two hours.

Mr Murray and Mr Lips prepared an entree of deep-fried, potato-string wrapped prawns on a roasted pumpkin and cream cheese whip bed, a paupiette of garfish with preserved lemon and saffron emulsion and Ras-El-Hanout-crusted parrot fish on a mustard-fruit tian.

Their second course was a quail-breast sandwich with a smoked duck-breast mousse, wrapped in savoy cabbage and oven roasted, served with ravioli over mushrooms and veal sweat-breads.

Mr Murray said the veal sweat-breads, a delicate cut of meat from the thyroid gland, was a testing ingredient because it was so rarely used, and had to be prepared in a particular way.

The pair were judged on hygiene, skills, team work, presentation and taste, scoring well for their skills and teamwork.

Full story in Wednesday's Southern Highland News.