It could be the restaurant review page of a Sunday newspaper: "Less is sometimes more and this was evident in a menu that was kicked off with a wonderful spicy parsnip soup. The puréed soup arrived hot, which is always a good sign, just the right consistency for a purée and anointed with a fragrant swirl of basil oil, a fruit dumpling and crisp parsnip wafers. The aromatics were used skilfully by the chefs to flavour and not overwhelm the palette, and the portion was the right size - not over-generous, but perfect. This was followed by a trio of locally produced lamb. First, a lightly cooked herb-crusted lamb cutlet, where the herbs delicately matched the flavour of the new-season lamb. A home-made lamb and mint sausage had just the right amount of mint to ground lamb, making a perfect combination. An individual miniature shepherd's pie finished the trio - a small bowl of chunky well-seasoned lamb topped with creamy mashed potato, served with crisp baby vegetables busting with flavour. The bread and butter pudding had a twist in its tail, made with chocolate and coffee as its base, with an orange and vanilla foam. The kitchen had lightly cooked the egg custard to perfection and the chocolate and coffee combination worked well."

This is judge Mark Allison, lecturer to the 2001 and 2002 Nestlé Toque d'Or winners, summing up South Trafford College's winning menu in the 2006 competition.

Now an associate lecturer at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the winners and their lecturer will spend seven days on a study tour, Allison appreciates the taste of reality the students gain through devising a restaurant concept which they then bring to life for one day, serving lunch to about 100 paying customers. He also values the contribution the competition can make to the students' studies.

"The competition plays a very important role in the education of any student in full-time education today," Allison says. "From filling out the initial entry form, the student embarks on a six-month intensive course in every aspect of running a business. These students learn more about financing, finding the right location, how to buy local produce, and how to cook and serve freshly made gourmet food to more than 100 customers than if they had been given a project on writing a thesis for their coursework.

He continues: "What makes the difference is that these students are putting into practice the ideas and concepts that they have taken days, weeks and months to research. It is not just looked over by their lecturer and marked, and graded for its contents. It becomes a living experience, with all the drama of opening a restaurant. The four finalists show that their concept could work in the real world."

The South Trafford team's lecturers, Thomas Ludecke and Lesley Wilson, agree that taking part in the competition reinforces what the students are taught in college.

"We felt it was a great competition for our students to participate in, largely because it had the business elements and the service elements, as well as the cheffing," says Wilson, programme co-ordinator for the BTEC National Diploma in hospitality supervision. "It also meant two different student groups working together, which is great integration."

She continues: "Three units on the BTEC National Diploma course are closely linked to the Toque d'Or competition: food and beverage service, team leading and supervision and hospitality small business start-up.

With the help of his business studies tutor, Richard Brown wrote his assignment for this unit on the start-up of "Restaurant Nineteen Sixty Six".

For chef-lecturer Ludecke's students it's an opportunity to put into practice the generic units of their course, such as organisation and storing food at the right temperature. "At the regional final they learn to make sure everything is in place to enable them to prepare the dishes and get the timings right," he says. "Then at the final they learn that they can do it on a larger scale, going from 20 covers to 100."

For the students themselves, the whole experience has been exhilarating and a huge learning curve with skills such as multi-tasking and motivating each other being developed throughout the course of the competition. For Richard Brown, one of the key lessons has been the effectiveness of working as a team. "We've learnt to appreciate the importance of teamwork," he says. "It's crucial."

The finalists

Sheffield College with Restaurant Medici - Jeni Melrose, Rachel Bond, Ian Musgrove, Benjamin Johnson, Daniel Lee, Steve Rimmer

Lancaster & Morecambe College with Rose Barn restaurant - Andrew Stanwix, Michael Halbert, Peter Atkins, Michelle Kay, George Norrie, Tom Ridding

Kilmarnock College with Esteln's - Carly Mulholland, Seonaidh O'Donnell, Alexander McGhee, Alistair Gemmell, Lindsay McDonald, Keith Grierson

South Trafford College with its "British Classics" Nineteen Sixty Six restaurant - Jessica Smith, Richard Brown, Richard Carver, Stuart Fairbrother, Marvin McGogg-Singh, Hoy Kay Li

Seven Days in Charlotte
The students from South Trafford College will spend seven days in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the Double Tree Inn, owned and operated by Johnson & Wales University. Four days of the seven-day tour will be spent at the newly built $120m state-of-the-art culinary facility. Under the tuition of associate instructor Mark Allison they will try their hand at ice carving. The students will be shown the rudiments of sculpturing ice in a one-hour lecture and demonstration. Outside in the courtyard they will then be given a block of ice, a chain saw, chisels and protective clothing and asked to turn each 300lb block of ice into their desired sculpture.

Days two and three will see the students working alongside associate professor Saddrudin Abdullah in the pastry arts department. On the first day, Abdullah will lead the students through a decorative dough workshop, with each student producing a table centrepiece based upon their restaurant concept. The second day will find the students working on cake-decorating skills, again incorporating their ideas and concepts from their prize-winning entry.

On day four the students will work with award-winning chef Bill Schutz to design and prepare a gourmet meal for College of Culinary Arts Dean Emeritus Robert Nograd and University Dean Karl Guggenmos along with 40 other specially invited guests at the Charlotte Campus Events Center.

It won't be all work and no play, however. The students will also attend a baseball game, visit a local brewer, tour Compass NAD headquarters, drive around Lowes Motor Speedway and sample a wide variety of food from the infamous "Big Block" cheeseburger at the Penguin to Jewish deli from Katz New York. On their final evening, University Dean Karl Guggenmos will host the team to a gourmet meal of French/Asian-inspired food at Town restaurant.