Full-Time Professional Chefs’ Training Courses

Where Sought-After Professional Chefs Train

Anyone who makes food and prepares meals regularly is a cook, part- or full-time, but cooks’ standards vary. They are classified according to the taste, creativity, and visually pleasing aspects of what they produce in the kitchen, on a consistent basis. These cooks, no matter how competent, are amateurs.

Long ago, before the advent of chef schools and formal chefs’ training courses, aspirant chefs, particularly those who excelled at their craft, served long apprenticeships under the guidance and supervision of experienced chefs who were deemed worthy and sufficiently talented or skilled to qualify for the title of “chef”. Senior, or master, chefs were regarded as being professional.

Professional Chefs’ Training Schools and Courses

Nowadays, professional chefs-in-training who attend a recognised and accredited chefs training school, like the reputable Prue Leith Academy, are required to complete many hours of formal practical and theoretical training at their college, as well as in restaurant kitchens, in place of serving yesteryear’s very lengthy, purely practical apprenticeships.

Prue Leith Full-Time Professional Courses

 Occupational Certificate: Chef – 3 years. This training course is the latest addition to the Prue Leith range of full-time programmes.

• Grande Diploma in Culinary Arts & Wine – 18 months.
• ALMA “Professional Chef of Italian Cuisine” – 13 months.
• Advanced Diploma in Culinary Arts – 6 months.
• Diploma in Patisserie – 12 months.
• Diploma in Patisserie – 6 months.

The structure and subjects of the last two training courses differ somewhat, but both are comprehensive and intensive, and include Prue Leith and City & Guilds-accredited qualifications.

 Prue’s Professional Graduates

 Much like the cooks to whom we referred earlier, chefs’ standards also vary today. Prue Leith Chefs Academy’s full-time professional chefs’ training courses and our graduates are so highly regarded in the industry that the latter are snapped up by employers almost immediately after graduation.

Prospective employers have a marked preference for engaging our graduates – a testament to the type of professional chefs that qualify at Prue Leith, and the excellence of their training, which is accredited locally and internationally. Where you train may well determine which type of chef you become.