Team Hawai‘i, Kapiolani Community College’s culinary competition team, took third place last week in the American Culinary Federation’s national collegiate championship in Orlando, Fla.

The contest included five teams — four regional teams and a military team — and handed out one gold medal, two silvers and two bronzes.

“I thought they deserved the gold,” Team Hawai‘i coach Jason Peel said Friday from Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort, where the “Cook. Craft. Create.” American Culinary Federation National Convention and Show was held.

Another team in the competition also called itself Team Hawaii. Representing the U.S. military was Team Hawaii Advanced Culinary Arts Training NCOIC, which took fifth place. It’s members serve the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force.

The KCC team’s menu lineup featured lobster chawanmushi (a Japanese savory custard) with black garlic and truffle; compressed melon and tomato salad with avocado, yogurt, sesame and yuzu; Thai-inspired chicken with green curry and coconut; and mango mousse, lilikoi curd, vanilla panna cotta and raspberry-lychee sorbet.

Peel said the team — student chefs Jeremy David, Kimberly Lim, Qihao “Sam” Tan, Sean Uyehara and Christian Rae Wong, with the assistance of classmate Richard G. Lee (whom Peel hopes can lead next year’s team) — came up with menu ideas, tested dishes, switched them, retested and refined.

“We tried a ton of dishes. It was a long process that took about two months,” he said. “In fact, for the dessert, we made our final decisions a week before we left for Orlando.”

Last week’s competition marked KCC’s first appearance at the nationals since 2013. The team won a statewide contest in December to advance to the ACF Western Regional Student Team Competition, held in February in Joliet, Ill. A victory there qualified the team for a seat in Orlando. The school took the championship in 2009.

The goals of the competition include raising standards of culinary excellence and professionalism and nurturing creativity.

Team Hawai‘i displayed such qualities, but Peel offered other reasons why the group excelled.

“They work well together. They’re always willing to learn, to adjust, to adapt,” he said. “They take a lot of pride in their cooking.”

Chefs de Cuisine Association of St. Louis Inc. from the Central region took top honors.

State University of New York at Delhi, representing the Northeast, came in second place. The Southeast region’s Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College from North Carolina placed fourth.