Young Chef’s Academy Centurion
You will be interested in knowing that there is a young chefs’ academy in Centurion. The young chef’s academy is situated in Centurion’s garden suburb of Hennopspark and just a couple of kilometres from the main highway that connects Pretoria with Johannesburg is the Prue Leith College of Food and Wine. The college is situated in the beautiful grounds of what was once the Lyttleton Manor House. The college comes with very high recommendations from some of the South African catering industries top leaders, several of whom give up valuable time to give talks and demonstrations there The Prue Leith College runs a Diploma course over eighteen months and is split into three semesters of six months each. You can only be admitted into the young chefs’ academy in Centurion if you have passed Matric or the equivalent and have reached eighteen. If your application is accepted you still have to attend an interview and complete a fairly comprehensive questionnaire before you can join one of the courses, which start in January and July. Students are expected to report for training and work experience as rostered – shifts may be day or evening shifts. You may wonder why there should be evening “shifts”, or any shifts at all for that matter. One of the philosophies of the college board of trustees is that, in order for anyone to retain the academic knowledge they have learned in the classroom or lecture theatre, that knowledge should be put into practice in the workplace as early as possible. Theoretical and practical training at the college is therefore carefully supplemented by extensive exposure to the harsh realities of the working place.
How is this exposure to the workplace achieved? The College has its own restaurant, Prue Leith’s, in the college grounds. From as early as their second week at the college students from the young chefs’ academy Centurion work in the restaurant. They do everything from Front of House to Maître d’Hotel. You will find them behind the bar, in the kitchen preparing and cooking meals, taking orders at table and serving those orders as well as stock taking and the preparation of weekly trading accounts I order to test the performance of the restaurant. All of this is done under the close supervision of the restaurant manager. Prue Leith’s restaurant is not promoted as a training restaurant, and must compete in all respects with the other top restaurants in Gauteng. The restaurant has been awarded its Blaizon from the Chaîne des Rotisseurs and is listed among the top twenty of South African restaurants and the top ten in Gauteng. The culinary standard set by this restaurant speaks highly of the standard of training at this fine college.
To sum up, the young chefs’ academy in Centurion goes by the name of The Prue Leith College of Food and Wine and it is the only young chefs’ academy in the whole of South Africa, let alone Centurion, that boasts its very own restaurant – which is virtually run by the students themselves. All sessions in the restaurant are, of course, carefully supervised by professional staff.
