At just 24, Arneya Fleury is the proud owner of her own café and restaurant in Taradale.

Running Trio Café and Restaurant with her mother Sharleen is by no means this young woman’s only achievement. 

Later this month, Arneya is to graduate with a Diploma in Professional Culinary Arts, having already gained a Bachelor of Visual Arts and Design from EIT Hawke’s Bay.

Both disciplines reflect Arneya’s artistic inclinations.  She continues to indulge her love of creative art, sculpting wood when she has access to a lathe.  Food preparation and presentation are her calling, however.

“I have a lot of career ahead of me,” says the young chef, who aims to be working in Europe when the lease on the Gloucester Road premises expires in six years time.

Arneya’s career path hasn’t always been that clear-cut. 

As a school-leaver, she decided to pursue culinary arts at EIT, her mother having pointed out that she enjoyed cooking at home.

“At 17, I was the youngest on the course by six or seven years,” Arneya recalls.  “Most of the students were in their mid-20s.  I didn’t think I would stay, but the older students took me under their wing and lecturer Mark Caves looked after me.”

Having completed Stages 1 and 2 in the diploma programme, Arneya went on to a variety of jobs in the hospitality industry. 

“I love interacting with people, so I alternated working as a chef with waitressing and working as a maitre d’.  I would tell potential employers that they were getting two people for the price of one!”

At 20, she launched into her degree at EIT, picking up skills that she was able to draw on in planning the design and fit-out of Trio’s kitchen.

Study-wise, what she most enjoyed was the patisserie qualification she did last year to complete her diploma.

“I am more of a dessert person and into fiddly stuff,” she explains.
Entering in the individual section of a cake decorating competition at Culinary Fare, she won silver for her chocolate fantasy design and bronze for a wedding cake. 

“It was an open section, meaning people who had been in the industry for years could take part.  So that was quite cool.”

The wedding cake went on to do well in other competitions, achieving a second in a local cake decorating guild event and a first in class at EIT.

Arneya says she pretends she doesn’t care about such accolades, “but if I am going to take something on, I give it 120 percent.  I am very competitive.”

At Trio, the pride she takes is reflected in the food on offer. 

“I make everything from scratch,” she says, “and I wouldn’t put my name to anything I haven’t done myself.”