Our Team

Director & Training Manager

Alison has been a professional chef for over 40 years. She trained in London at the highly prestigious Westminster Hotel School where she received the Westminster School Diploma in Professional Cookery. She then spread her wings and travelled around the globe working in some of the world’s finest kitchens, cooking for movie stars, pop stars, sporting greats and more importantly royalty, namely Queen Elizabeth II and two US presidents both Reagan and Bush Snr. along the way. Alison eventually reached Australia in 1988 where she was appointed as chef for the VIP Lounge of the Australian Pavilion at World Expo 88. She has lived in Australia for 32 years.

She began her professional teaching career in 1996 and gained a Bachelor of Adult and Vocational Teaching from Griffith University in 2000. She also held the role of a tenured Leading Vocational Culinary Teacher at Southbank Institute of Technology (COTAH) for 14 years. During this tenure, she received several awards. In 2004, Alison was the first chef to win a prestigious ‘Churchill Fellowship’ which was a great honour. Alison claimed a further award namely ‘Outstanding Educator’ in 2006 for the degree program she wrote for chefs in Australia.

In 2014, Alison launched ‘The Institute of Culinary Excellence’ (ICE) which is a registered RTO. ICE started with only 8 apprentice chef students. Over the last 10 years, ICE has trained over 2000 apprentice and trainee chefs, from most of the top 10 restaurants in Brisbane. After only 4 years of operation, ICE was awarded ‘Best School in Queensland’ in 2018 and 2021, and a finalist in 2024.

Media-wise, Alison was the resident chef on Channel 9 for several years and has made many appearances on TV. Alison has written 5 books: ‘Fun, Fast and Fabulous Food’ (2008) ‘Leftovers Magic’ (2010), ‘Eat For Your Life’ (2013), the proceeds from the sale of this book go directly to her cancer charity ‘Eat For A Cure’ aimed at helping people use food to overturn terminal illness. Her fourth book was ‘Food for Thought’, written to ‘health up’ tuck shops around Australia and Number 5 was the ‘Recipe Resource’ written for Queensland Meals on Wheels.

Just recently Alison completed an Oxford University Program in Strategic Leadership and was awarded honours for her efforts.
Alison is CEO and Training Manager for ICE and her students become part of her extended family. All the students at ICE are respected, motivated, inspired, and led by her and her incredible team of teachers and trainers. Alison leads ICE by example and her work ethic, leadership and professionalism as a teacher and professional chef are second to none.

Her dream for ICE was to ‘transform lives through food’ and she has certainly done that…

Head of School and Executive Chef

Danielle Dixon started her chef apprenticeship with Alison Taafe aged 29. After she became qualified she gained valuable experience in some of Australia’s top restaurants including Quay, Rockpool and Aria after she settled back in Brisbane. She came back to work for Alison at ICE in 2017 and in 2018 she was offered the position of Executive Chef and Head of School.

Danielle looks after the students on a day to day basis at ICE. She also develops the curriculum and maintains relationships with employers and industry partners of ICE. In 2021, she was awarded VET Trainer of the Year in Queensland for her amazing ability to teach and connect with vocational students. We are all very proud of Danielle.

Office Manager

Hannah commenced at Southbank Institute of TAFE as an administrator in 2005. She first met Alison whilst working in the College of Tourism and Hospitality. In 2011, she left to raise a young family. During that time as a stay at home mother, she was contacted by Alison several times to assist with the administrative duties at ICE. In 2017, after her youngest child had started school, Hannah decided to take Alison up on her offer and commenced work at ICE. Initially, starting as an administration assistant, Hannah has since taken on the role of Office Manager which sees her running the ‘day to day‘ office operations.

Her role also sees her supporting all the many ICE apprentices and clients. Hannah has excelled in her role at ICE and her position has grown to encompass compliance and contract management too. Hannah’s excellent work ethic and her ability to do just about anything she puts her mind to, has become invaluable to ICE.