Chequers Restaurant, Fareham College
College restaurants have improved immeasurably over the past decade, most of the better ones in the area ditching the outmoded hotel service and food in favour of rather more enlightened fare and ambience suited to the 21st century.
South Downs College has just been awarded Restaurant Magazine's UK College Restaurant Of The Year 2009 in a fiercely-fought national college battle, a remarkable achievement.
Highbury's college restaurant is now gracing the city centre in a spanking new building. Locals can now more easily book a table to see for themselves the caterers of the future; Fareham College is equally going down the route of modernising Chequers, their on-campus restaurant.
Now bathed in baby blue with a striking large silver clock, bar, high-backed brown chairs and a view of green fields and woods, you might be forgiven for thinking you have stumbled upon a charming modern mid-range restaurant.
But instead of no-one greeting you and – much less taking your coat and dripping umbrella – young keen as mustard staff, a mix of first, second and third year students welcome you and bustle you into the sans muzak restaurant.
They open the menu to the relevant page, they inform you that someone will be with you to take your order – and then they forget you, the latter just like far too many restaurants you and I visit in the so-called real world.
I suspect the reason for abandonment was due to all hands being on deck for the large party next to my table. This is a college where they are learning the tricks of the trade, so fine and dandy.
I sat reading the menu and the drinks list – there are 10 wines to choose from at 1970s prices plus spirits and soft drinks – for the length of time it took that smart silver clock's minute hand to notch up 15 ticks.
But it gave me time to come to grips with what the college is endeavouring to teach these students and observing the student waiting staff in action. Formality reigns here, all the correct wording is in place.
The menu is certainly one that regular eaters-out would recognise, not a throw-back to the past when college students cooked dull banqueting dishes.
Or so it reads.
On offer was ham and leek terrine; deep-fried vegetable tempura; cauliflower soup and soused mackerel, salmon fillet with prosciutto and green lentils and sea bass fillets with fennel and olives, the latter two dishes bang up to date.
Stuffed roasted lamb with capers and roasted onions, chicken breast with a mushroom sauce or a risotto with Parmesan, rocket salad and pesto sauce also featured on the two- or-three-course menu (8.95).
Some of the tempura-battered vegetables hit the mark, the broccoli cut too large, the addition of a dish of vinegar studded with mild chilli questionable, its sharpness not adding to the sum of its parts.
A cold dull roll with caraway and old-fashioned butter shapes reminded me of banqueting meals as did the lamb which came without the billed capers or roasted onions but with a pomme surprise (another banquet stalwart: piped potatoes in a potato skin) and broccoli Polonais (with sauteed breadcrumbs).
French is thankfully as rare as hen's teeth on today's restaurant menus: a real puzzle here.
The best was certainly saved for the last, an apple tarte tatin with excellent fudge ice cream was a toothsome finale despite an overtly caramelised crust verging on the burnt.
Fareham College has recently invested more than 130,000 in new training kitchens and wins awards, a recent culinary competition seeing a silver for napkin folding and butchery among its 14 awards.
Napkin folding?
Formality has its place but this is outmoded and not often practiced in the real world.
What students need is to get excited about cooking food simply and with good produce, being able to tell the difference between old hat and new ways, giving pleasurable service with a smile and professionalism, the latter certainly the case here.
Best of British to all you lovely students. My bill came to 10.45 including a glass of Merlot served in an old-fashioned Paris goblet but not a well-deserved tip.
Chequers Restaurant, Fareham College, Bishopsfield Road, Fareham, Hampshire, PO14 1NH. 01329 815402.
Open: During term time between midday-2.30pm (Mon & Fri only), 6.30-9.30pm (Tue-Thu only) and 11.45am-12.15pm (Wed). Check for opening times first.
Food: ***
Service: ****
Atmosphere: ****
Disabled access: Yes.
How to get there: Follow the A27 to Southampton once past Fareham, the college is on Bishopsfield Road, a turning to the left along this road. Car park. Follow the signs for Chequers Restaurant once on campus.
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