David Nicholls isn't known for grabbing the headlines, but the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park's executive chef and food and beverage director heavily criticised the National Training Vocational System (NVQ) in his keynote speech at the 2005 Chef Conference.
Nicholls, the 2005 Chef Award Catey winner, said the main problem with NVQs, he felt, was their lack of practical assessment and the disappearance of independent assessors.
Improved training was vital to the industry which, he claimed, was currently set to lose some 12.4b in staff costs through high turnover in the next seven years in the run-up to the London Olympics.
The Mandarin Oriental's own example was proof, he told delegates, of how improved staff retention saved money. "Six years ago our staff turnover was 60%, but in F&B we have that down to 12% and in the restaurant kitchens down to 15%," he said. Because induction and training costs had therefore been reduced, the hotel had saved an estimated 250,000 a year.
Nicholls accepted that long working hours could deter young people. He worked out that, over a 33-year career, he had spent 102,000 hours in the kitchen. In "real" working hours using the average working time of 40 hours a week, this translated into a span of 58 years - getting on for double the actual time. "It's no wonder 80% of students who train as a chef leave the industry within three years," he said.
Competitions: Are they worth it?
Culinary competitions encourage young chefs to be focused and dedicated to their work. But they shouldn't be allowed to take over the day job or become an obsession, agreed a panel of chefs - all of whom have achieved success in, or judged, competitions - discussing the pros and cons of competitions in a morning session.
The five-strong panel also pointed out that doing well in competitions can generate publicity and raise your profile if you're based out of London, as well as helping to build team morale when brigades enter events like the Parade des Chefs at Hotelympia.
Steven Doherty, executive chef, First Floor Café at Lakeland Plastics and chairman of the Ramsay Scholar competition, said most of the mistakes in competitions occurred because basic rules weren't followed. "We've asked candidates cooking chicken not to serve it whole and several of them have," he said.
Simon Hulstone, head chef of the Elephant Restaurant & Bar, Torquay, Devon, and the 2003 Roux Scholar, had another word of advice.
Get your starter up before anyone else. It sets the standard and puts pressure on other competitors."
And what about damage limitation after a disaster? "You can pull things back if you keep a cool head," said Jonathan Harrison, chef-proprietor of the Sandpiper Inn, Leyburn, North Yorkshire.
Masterclasses
Galvin-ised
Chris Galvin is currently existing on three hours' sleep a night, so delegates attending the morning masterclass which he hosted were catching a rare sighting of the chef. The reason for Galvin's lack of shuteye is the phenomenal success of his new restaurant Galvin, opened with brother and fellow chef Jeff in September.
Terrific reviews have praised the brothers' lasagne of Dorset crab, one of two dishes Galvin demonstrated on stage with his demi chef de partie, Ryan Smith.
Comprising crab mousse and pasta layers, it's steamed and served with a velouté of girolles, made using whipping cream for extra lightness. Priced at £9, it's flying off the menu - "but it's killing the fish chef", said Galvin with a smile.
Galvin's second dish was a daube of venison, using a shoulder of fallow deer from the Denham Estate. This was cooked for three hours and served with celeriac purée, quince, trompette mushrooms and chestnuts. The restaurant buys in about 150kg of fallow deer venison a week.
A-Mazing
Jason Atherton, head chef at Time Out Best New Restaurant Maze, gave delegates a food and wine matching tutorial with the aid of his colleague, Maze sommelier Laure Patry.
Atherton cooked three dishes from the current menu - roasted squab with four-spice celeriac, cabbage purée, date and bacon sandwich; roasted sea scallop dusted in curry spice served with vanilla and pumpkin purée, roasted mushrooms and Parmesan cream, and foie gras with roasted lobster, served on a carpaccio of confited cèpes with a lobster and chestnut jus - while Patry talked through the Maze wine list.
Among the wines tasted was Suki, a sake from Yamatogawa in Kitakata city in the Fukushima prefecture. Ideal for the spices used in Atherton's scallop dish, the wine has an alcohol content of 16.8%, is golden in colour and crisp on the palate with hints of almond and tangerine.
Greenhouse effect
Bjorn van der Horst's menu at London's Michelin-starred Greenhouse restaurant is classically-based, and he exploits some fairly striking flavours in his food.
Take espresso syrup served with foie gras, or a concentrate of liquorice accompanying pain d'épice (both cooked at van der Horst's conference masterclass) - innovative combinations, but flavourings that also create serious challenges for head sommelier Benoit Allauzen.
Initially the duo tried serving a martini with the foie gras, but customers were put off by having an aperitif after they had already started drinking wine. Allauzen now pairs the liver with a Tokay Oremus 1999. "The balance of the sweetness and acidity are good against the caramelised almond crust on the foie gras," he explained.
The dessert was paired with a Passito di Pantelleria 2002. The dish includes a liquorice sorbet and quince jelly, and a concentrate of liquorice. "The Passito sits well with the main liquorice flavour," said Allauzen.
Mine's a Beer
Delegates sitting in on Mark Dorber's beer and food matching masterclass were introduced to a whole new world. Dorber, owner of the White Horse pub in Parson's Green, South-west London, is a champion of the cause and brought his head chef, Andrew Bellew, to the session to supply the food. Beers tasted included:
- A fruit beer from Belgium - Liefmans Frambozen - accompanied a foie gras crostini with a raspberry demi-glace. It proved to be the winning beer-food match of the day, with the beer's fresh raspberry flavour cutting through the fattiness of the foie gras.
- Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout from a microbrewery in New York was served with a chocolate tartlet. "Chocolate is one of the hardest foods to match with wine, but with dark malts like this Brooklyn Black you immediately find a good combination - both in flavour and texture," said Dorber.
Pitch perfect
In the afternoon, delegates took part in an interactive session that required them to tender for a "made-up" contract scenario. Delegates were split into four groups and asked to come up with unique proposals which they had to present, in front of the whole audience, to Chester Boyd chief executive Charles Boyd and Lexington Catering's chef-director Rob Kirby.
Team leaders Adam Nossek, Mark Parfait, Rik Razza and Bill Brogan had just three minutes each to put forward their proposals.
Among the suggestions for our new-build, Docklands-based media company were juices and smoothies delivered to employees by rollerblading catering professionals, webcams into the staff restaurant so people could see how busy it was, and touch-screen ordering via the intranet.
Leave comfort behind
Former professional footballer-turned-stadium developer Paul Fletcher, the man behind the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, told chefs that knowledge of your profession and constantly challenging yourself were the keys to a successful career.
He encouraged delegates to move outside their comfort zone.
"Don't let butterflies in your stomach stop you moving beyond the zone," he said.