Wine College
The Prue Leith Chefs’ Academy, without doubt the best chef’s training school and wine college in the country, was started in 1997. The academy can be found tucked away in the quiet suburb of Hennopspark, which is between Centurion and Pretoria. The college premises include a fully equipped and modern demonstration kitchen as well as a large teaching kitchen, and a large lecture theatre. Also to be found in the college grounds are a 48 seat restaurant with a separate lounge area, a tea garden and a boma. The college is in the spacious grounds of what was once the Lyttleton Manor House. This excellent wine and food academy was the brainwave of two of the trustees, Tiny Barnetson and Graham Ledger, two Johannesburg business men who started the academy after recognizing that there was a dire shortage of good catering staff in South Africa. This wine college is the only chefs’ training establishment in the country that boasts its very own cordon bleu restaurant on site. The college library has non-stop internet access and all the latest cookery books and DVDs.
This wine and food college offers an extremely comprehensive chefs’ course that includes a thorough Finance section, plenty of practical and catering experience, the Cape Wine Academy Course, extensive practical experience not only in the college’s own restaurant but also time spent at one or more five star catering establishments either in South Africa or overseas. Students are rostered to work in Prue Leith’s, the restaurant, right from the beginning of their course. Here they work in the hot or the cold kitchen, wait at table, act as Maître d’Hotel and act as wine waiter. They also carry out regular stock checks and prepare weekly trading accounts.
Students may enter the college for this wine and food course after they have sat their Matric exams – they must obtain at least a standard grade pass, and if they have turned 18 years of age. They must also sit and pass an interview board. There are two courses starting each year, in January and July. The course lasts for eighteen months and consists of three semesters. One of the highlights of the course is the Cape Wine Academy Certificate course – students are required to complete this course in order to graduate from the Chefs’ Academy. The course is run during the second semester and a strong accent is placed on the marriage of food and wine. As well as this course the college also runs a tour of the Western Cape winelands – students get to visit vineyards in Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl and to gain valuable exposure into how wine is produced. This tour is an extra, the student bearing the cost, and depends upon a minimum of twenty participants.
Prue Leith graduates can be found in the kitchens of world renowned chefs such as Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay. The mere mention of the name Prue Leith conjures up a vision of excellence, and is a name that is highly thought throughout the catering world.
