Olympic success for Offaly chef

An Offaly man has received industry recognition for his catering achievements at this year"s Olympic Games, where he fed athletes, coaches, family members and sports journalists. Peter Connolly, from Shannonbridge, is head chef with Aramark Ireland in Dublin and originally trained in the Bridge House Hotel. Peter, along with 11 other staff, travelled to Beijing to join a 7,500 strong catering team to provide catering services at the games. The team provided 24-hour dining facilities in five venues including the Olympic Village and the International Broadcasting Centre. Over the 60 days of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the team prepared 3.5 million meals including 4.29 million portions of rice, 2.3 million pieces of fresh fruit and 250,000 pizzas which was the most popular dish. On the busiest day, they served over 100,000 meals. 'My typical day consisted of starting work at noon and finishing at midnight,' Peter said of his role in the Olympic kitchen. 'There was me and one other American chef over a brigade of 150 Chinese chefs on our shift. The operation was the biggest in the world ever. The restaurant can seat 6,000 people at any one time, making it the biggest restaurant in the world.' Peter said that he found Chinese people a pleasure to work with and thought Beijing itself was amazing. Catherine Toolan, Executive Director of Aramark"s Olympic Services said, 'I would like to congratulate Peter on being part of the catering team for this year"s Olympic Games. It is very exciting to be part of the world"s largest sporting event and we are very proud of the involvement of Peter and his colleagues from ARAMARK Ireland.' A cookery fan from a young age, Peter moved from Ferbane Vocational School to Banagher Vocational School in first year, so that he could study Home Economics. Peter then completed a two-year professional cookery course in Athlone IT and went on to Galway Mayo IT to do an Advanced National Cert in supervisory development. Since then he has gained lots of work experience, including some time working for Australian Football League team the Richmond Tigers in their clubhouse.