Fine Dining Courses

Because of the particular method of presentation and cooking in fine dining restaurants, courses are available that are extremely specialist, and even the most humble chef in such an establishment has at least an eighteen month graduate course behind him. There’s only one catering college in Gauteng where you will find fine dining courses, and that’s the Prue Leith Chefs’ Academy. If you take a look at advertisements for catering staff, and in particular for chefs,

You will frequently see that the ad stipulates that applicants must be in possession of a Prue Leith Diploma. That’s because it’s the best. This chefs’ academy offers two courses a year, starting in January and July and lasting for eighteen months. The courses are over three semesters.

The fine dining courses at the Prue Leith Chefs’ Academy cover every imaginable aspect of the catering trade, and the graduate diploma awarded to successful students at the close of each course is not only much sought after, but is sacrosanct in the catering industry the world over. The college curriculum is extremely comprehensive, the accent being on traditional French cuisine with modules that include Thai, Japanese, Chinese and pan-African cooking. The end result of the these fine dining courses is a number of fine dining chefsready to go out into the world to jobs to some of the top catering establishments of South Africa, Europe and the Middle East. In fact, part of each course is that students spend two periods of two months each at such establishments as the Sabi Sabi Game Reserve, the Dubai Sheraton, and the Haute Cabrière in Franschhoek, where they are put to work to gain on the job experience.