Chef Lectures

The Prue Leith Chefs’ Academy has regularly been rated by top chefs in the country as the finest chef’s training institution in South Africa. One of the reasons for this is that the chef lectures contained in the college curriculum are all-encompassing and very comprehensive. The academy continues to go from strength to strength with 120 students being at the college at any one time. The goal of the trustees is excellence, one of the philosophies being that if they are still doing the same thing as they were doing six months ago, then they are going backwards. Chef lectures cover a wide range of subjects from kitchen organization and equipment to finance and management, and naturally a whole range of cooking lectures. On the successful completion of the eighteen month course, and providing the student has achieved at least a 60% pass for both theory and practical courses, he or she is awarded with the Prue Leith Diploma, a much sought after qualification.

The course of chef lectures at this noteworthy catering college takes a full eighteen months and this is split into three equal semesters. In their second and third semesters they get to spend two periods of eight weeks each in selected hotels, restaurants and game lodges in order to gain valuable on-the-job experience to back up their chef lectures. By the time they have completed their diploma these student chefs are ready to work in the catering department of any top class establishment. Indeed many of the establishments where they been seconded offer them jobs as soon as they have pocketed their diplomas.