Vacherin's Antonio Salvani gets to grips with the coffee machine at the Vacherin barista competition

Vacherin crowns its first Barista of the Year



Specialist London catering company, Vacherin, has crowned Lukasz Pancewicz as the first Vacherin Barista of the Year.

Lukasz was the overall winner of the coffee making competition which was held at the Illy training centre in the Business Design Centre on Tuesday.

The competition was split into three categories: ‘Prefect Espresso’; ‘Perfect Milk’, where the five contestants had to master making a latte, cappuccino and macchiato, and ‘Signature Beverage’ where they were each asked to come up with their own unique hot drink and ‘sell it’ to the audience.

Illy experts Marco Arrigo and Davide Rocchi were on hand to mentor the contestants and provide tips before judging their coffee making skills.

Prizes were also awarded to Vicky Mouland for the best Espresso, Saba Woidermariam for best signature drink, Marina Podlesnaja for the best milk and Antonio Salvani for the most improvement during the competition.

Marco says: “Lukasz stood out because he was the most consistent in all of the categories and he has a great passion for coffee. I always say that being a barista is not all about the coffee though – you must have a fantastic personality as well.”

Lukasz’ signature drink was a modern take on an Irish coffee which consisted of a Mocha with milk, hazelnut syrup and a dash of Kahlua and Cognac, finished off with a swirl of foam on the top.
Other signature drinks included the ‘Saba-ccino’, ‘Freaky Latte’ and ‘Amaretto Hot Chocolate’.


Vacherin Operations Support Manager and coffee guru, Anna Morris, says: “The first Vacherin Barista of the Year competition was a great success and we are definitely looking to make it an annual event. It was fantastic to see our baristas in action and everyone learnt a lot from Marco and Davide at Illy as well. Overall, we were really impressed with everyone’s entries, especially for the signature drinks which were all really original – we are even hoping to introduce them at some of our sites over the next few months.”

Vacherin is a boutique catering company specialising in staff restaurants, in-house fine dining and meeting room and event hospitality, primarily within the City and West End of London.
For further information about Vacherin, please visit: www.vacherin.com.