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Goodwood Restaurant, Chichester College
Chichester College's catering department runs two restaurants – Goodwood and Options. Both are open to the public.
They are run under the watchful eye of fine dining tutor Geoff Sutton, who came up with the idea of adding a new intensive cooking course for chefs who had already completed their initial training.
Chefs who undertake this two- days-a-week, year-long course make more complicated dishes using more ingredients. The chefs are also taught to plan menus, invent recipes and understand the balance of flavours in dishes.
They get to demonstrate their prowess by preparing the Chefs' Table, a seven-course meal served on certain dates at the Goodwood Restaurant. The next Chefs' Tables are on Thursday, April 3 and Thursday, May 1.
I was invited by the college to join a guest table to sample the seven-course meal.
We kicked off with seared foie gras in a brioche with Seville orange marmalade. Sadly the foie gras was under-seared and inedible.
I'm not sure if I would have let this first course out if I had been in charge of the chefs.
Pickled salsify – a root vegetable belonging to the dandelion family – and red chard with a quail's egg looked pretty but the dressing was too vinegary.
The third course, braised oxtail risotto with a glazed lemon thyme, carrot and red wine jus, finally showed the students were hitting their stride. The oxtail, beautifully, slowly cooked, was shredded and added to a very fine risotto, with the other earthy flavours adding to the dish. Full marks for this triumph.
The students used their imagination with the next course, serving rock oyster with a vine tomato and vodka shot. Set on a fashionable rectangular plate, the oyster, breaded and deep-fried, was one of the meal's more memorable offerings. The shot glass's rim had been dipped in enough celery salt to last a family of four for a week. Less is more.
Pan-fried pigeon breast with caramelised rhubarb and scallions was next up, but pan cooking the pigeon was not hot enough, resulting in rather tough, beige breast rather than pink pigeon. We all found it a very strong dish, and the components fought one another with too many ingredients on the plate.
Many professional chefs use the dessert course to show off their sugar-based skills, so the resulting dishes are often laden with a plethora of shapes, tastes and contrasts.
In my book, just one simple, well-prepared dessert often wins the customer over – not an over-complication of offerings.
Here, chocolate discs fought for space with pannacotta and apple charlotte among other sweeties. I couldn't get my head or tastebuds around it.
One more course to go. Golden Cross goats' cheese, a local Sussex one, was encased in pastry with grapes. The pastry was good, and the cheese excellent – but why over-complicate a fine cheese? Let it speak for itself.
This is a training restaurant, so students scoop up many useful cooking techniques before setting out on their careers.
My critical comments are meant to help because the restaurant world is an unforgiving one and the competition is tough.
But thanks for the oxtail and oyster, Ashley, Dan, Jade and Lau. They were ace.
Goodwood Restaurant, Chichester College, Westgate Fields, Chichester. 01243 789024.
Open: The Goodwood Restaurant, open for lunch and dinner Tue-Thu, has a Taste of Sussex theme from April 22 to May 22. The Chefs' Table's dates are April 3 and May 1.
Food: ***
Service: ****
Atmosphere: ***
Disabled access: Yes.
How to get there: Take the A27 to Chichester and exit at the Tesco roundabout. At the next roundabout enter the college car park, go into the college building and follow the signs for the restaurant.
Diners' View
Lindy Banks-Smith and Nils Anderson, from Havant: 'My niece was at college here learning the trade and we started coming to see what was being taught – and we've been mostly impressed by the less complicated food,' said Lindy. 'Sometimes the waiting staff are a little hesitant but I give them a good smile to encourage them,' Nils added.
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
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