Would you eat rolled octopus with squid-ink cream? What about milk-poached tooth fish? This year, Singapore’s team of chefs used these foods—and several others—to win the Culinary Olympics for the first time ever.

Culinary is a fancy word that means food. The Culinary Olympics take place in Erfurt, Germany, every four years. Thousands of people come to watch. This year as chefs worked, the convention center turned into the biggest restaurant in the world. Singapore won a double gold—one for cold food and one for hot food. The chefs beat 29 other countries.

To get ready for the Olympics, Singapore’s team of six chefs practiced for a year. In other countries, chefs get months off work in order to train. But the Singaporean chefs had to keep their weekday cooking jobs. So they trained on the weekends.

“It is not possible to create competition food daily,” says chef Louis Tay, the team’s manager. Food competitions encourage chefs to think of creative dishes. They also help chefs be consistent. During the competition, the chefs had to work quickly. They had to make four types of finger food. Then they had to make a platter with a salad. Then came three different starters, a three-course lunch menu for vegetarians, and a five-course menu with dessert. The chefs finished all this work overnight. It took them about eight hours. And that was just the cold food!

The hot cooking competition had just three courses. But that wasn’t easy either. The chefs had to make 110 portions of each dish! The food on each plate had to look and taste absolutely identical.

Chef Tay says the big win has “put Singapore on the map.” He means it has drawn attention to the little Asian city-state. But it took serious work. The Singaporean chefs sacrificed their time—and sleep. They don’t just deserve the gold. They deserve a nap!