A special three-course meal, designed, prepared and served by Goodwood's apprentice chefs, is the perfect excuse for these young cooks to stretch their culinary muscles.
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00:00Young chefs working at Goodwood's Kennel Club showcase their skills and creativity in a sold-out
00:05three-course special dinner on February 13th. It's a yearly tradition at the Kennel Club
00:11coinciding with National Apprentice Week during which culinary apprentices take the reins on a
00:16luxury three-course service of their own creation. The chefs, after honing their skills under the
00:22watchful eye of executive chef Mike Watts, work together to develop the menu, source the
00:27ingredients, prep the dishes and, when guests finally come filing into the Kennel's gorgeously
00:32appointed dining room, serve the food hot and on time. It's quite exciting for them I think
00:38because it's their dish, they know they've got support around so we don't leave them completely
00:42on their own at the same time. Their friends, their family are coming, it's a really good
00:45opportunity for them to shine and show off. It's an absolute joy to watch them deliver what we know
00:52they're capable of to be honest and see them under pressure. Half an apprenticeship is about learning
00:57but it's also about making mistakes so although we hope they don't make a mistake tonight and we
01:01won't let them or they shouldn't anyway but it's about seeing how hard it is actually running a
01:05kitchen and being in charge of the service. It's one of those opportunities that I didn't get when
01:09I was their age so it's really good to see them get it now. For Kennel members it's a much-anticipated
01:13yearly event but for the chefs themselves it's a chance to flex their culinary muscles, show off
01:18their creativity, put their skills to the test for a dining room full of real paying customers.
01:24With an ambitious menu consisting of mushroom raviolo to start, herb crusted Goodwood lamb for
01:29main and vanilla choux buns for dessert, all sourced and prepared in-house, it's safe to say
01:34the chefs didn't shirk from the challenge. For hard-working apprentice Henry Harvey who's been
01:40based at Goodwood for a year and a half, one of the most exciting parts of this year's dinner
01:44was taking charge of a kitchen himself, leading a service from start all the way through to finish.
01:50Last year I did this as well, I did a big apprentice takeover where I was
01:56given a section instead of to help lead the whole kind of service, it's just one
02:00small section. So you're top man? Yeah so far. And is that a lot of pressure? I mean I would,
02:07I know who I am, I would absolutely collapse under that kind of thing.
02:14And how do you cope with that? The pressure, well I'd say it's just
02:18at the end of the day it's a lot of pressure but for people I'm working with I know what they're
02:22doing, I can kind of lean on them to help me get through. It's a jump start to their promising
02:28careers which could see these chefs working in some of the best restaurants in the world,
02:33like apprentice Drew Lone who's currently working on desserts and says he has his eyes firmly set
02:39on the international stage. I want to go a few years in France, a few years in Italy
02:44and just basically just work and work and work and work. And do you feel like this has equipped
02:47you to kind of take your skills? Yeah yeah, good connections here, loads and loads and loads of
02:52really good chefs. It's kind of a nice place to calm down, another chef but yeah really good
03:01connections, like a few good chefs who came from London and I'd love to go work there but you know
03:06see where it takes me. Others, and this will come as no surprise, like to stick a little closer to
03:12home. I was actually counting it last night, all of our kitchens still have somebody that's gone
03:19through the apprenticeship working in them, be it a chef to party level or going up the ladder, so
03:24everybody gets a job at the end of it where ideally where they'd like but realistically
03:28where we need as well. We're very lucky to have four generations of different apprentices
03:35still working with us, so you're looking at the 2020 cohort, they've got two that work here at
03:40the Kells and then we've got three at the hotel, almost four because one's about to pass through
03:44their course in a couple months, one at the house and just seeing them flourish and then I think my
03:49dream in the end will be they have to leave, they have to go and see the world, they have to go and
03:53explore but if one of them came back in 10 years time became a head chef at Goodwood, I think that's
03:57the circle that we're looking to achieve.