You might have caught Hotel GB on Channel 4 in October and wondered at the point of it all, apart from resurrecting Big non-Frowny Gordon’s TV career. If you didn’t, the concept was to take long-term unemployed young people and train them in the hospitality and catering industry in five days, at the end of which team leaders Gordon R and Mary Portas each chose an apprentice to go on and work for them. Apart from stating the obvious, which is that some people are really good at dealing with the general public (Liverpudlian Emily who was so very sincere) and some really aren’t (Tom who seemed to lack an ‘edit’ function), and that Gordon can (shock horror) make a devastatingly good personnel manager when required, it also caught the zeitgeist in highlighting the huge amount of investment currently being ploughed into the industry starting at the bottom – with the students. Read on and salivate at the thought of the slick professionalism both front- and back-of-house which is all set to enhance that dining experience.
The Edge Hotel School, located at Wivenhoe House in Colchester, opened its doors for the academic year and will be the very first in surely a long line where students from the University of Essex can combine their two-year hospitality degrees with hands-on experience.
Bruno Loubet is the driving force behind a professional hospitality and catering academy set to open next year in South London. Catering to 100 students, courses and training covers every part of the industry from kitchen to front-of-house. It will have its own commercial restaurant and an open-view kitchen where diners can watch the apprentices at work.
The Oyster Catcher Project in Anglesey, supported by The Timpson Foundation, takes 14-18 new recruits each year, giving them hands-on front-of-house and kitchen experience while they do their NVQs, before giving them a further 12 months work and launching them onto future careers.
Opening in 2015, Oldham will be hosting Hotel Future, a four-star 120-bed in-house training experience for 300 apprentices each year. Set up as a charitable trust, it has attracted support from such august organisations as the Manchester Hotelier Association, Oldham Council, Radisson and Hilton hotel groups among others.
The De Vere Academy of Hospitality with the National Apprenticeship Service plans to educate 10,000 students over the next three years as it opens sites up and down the country, including Liverpool, Crewe, Milton Keynes, Manchester and London with more to come in Birmingham, Brighton and other cities around the country.
For those of us who take service, both good and bad, for granted and for those who are constantly bemoaning the unprofessional service in restaurants around the country, the formalised, passionate, structured reconstruction of our hospitality industry can only be completely positive and beneficial, particularly at a time when the UK requires as much tourism and at-home investment than ever. And hopefully great cooking and smiling service will become the hallmark, rather than forlorn hope.
