Top chefs from Jamie Oliver’s groundbreaking London restaurant Fifteen have visited City of Bath College to cook alongside catering students.
Fifteen graduate chef Nathan Collymore and current apprentices Ebou Jobe and Charley Hilton-Grant spent a day at College working with the students on a range of home-made pasta dishes. They also talked to the aspiring chefs about the industry and their experiences of working at Fifteen.
The day formed part of City of Bath College’s programme of visits from leading local and national chefs, which aim to give students a taste of the world of work and an understanding of what it takes to have a successful career in such a competitive industry.
Hatty Cary, Fifteen’s Outreach Coordinator, said: “It’s great for our apprentices to be involved with visits like this. It gives them the chance to share their knowledge and skills with others and makes them realise how far they have come since starting Fifteen’s Apprentice Programme.”
Bridget Halford, Head of the College’s Hospitality and Catering department, said: “It was fantastic to have the Fifteen team with us for the day. They were great with the students and passed on a lot of tips of the trade and advice about the industry which I know our students found very useful.”
Fifteen is a restaurant founded by Jamie Oliver in 2002. Every year, the restaurant recruits unemployed and under-qualified young people, aged between 18 and 24, from the local area and trains them to become qualified chefs through an Apprentice Programme.
Fifteen is named after the first group of 15 apprentices who embarked on the course in London in 2002. Since then, 109 young people have graduated from the restaurant, with some of them now running their own restaurants, starring on TV or working in top-class kitchens from London to New York to Sydney.
