Thanks to Grande Cuisine for providing a fantastic French learning experience for our 2022 Andrew Fairlie Scholarship winner, Eddie Brown!

Grande Cuisine are a supplier of prime cooking equipment to the hospitality sector and worked with Andrew to supply the main cook suite at Restaurant Andrew Fairlie. 

Stephen Hobbs, Director at Grande Cuisine said: “Andrew was a great supporter of ours in our younger business days and helped in establishing our business, allowing us to get where we are today. We have since created the Grande Cuisine Academy, a not for profit online resource that is completely free for Chef Lecturers and Students to utilise as part of their hospitality courses and into their careers, and we organise an educational visit to France for young chefs.

“The visit is designed to give chefs an inspirational trip to the heart of gastronomic France, visiting Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse food market, the Chartreuse region and Sandrine Chappaz Chocolatier, and a visit to the Athanor factory, with some excellent French dining. We’re delighted to give something back to the industry in Andrew’s name, and have the winner of the Andrew Fairlie Scholarship join us for this experience.

“It was great to have Eddie with us in May, and to see how much he enjoyed it.  I am sure the future Andrew Fairlie Scholarship winners will benefit from this too, and we look forward to meeting the next winner.”

Eddie said it was a very informative trip that would stick with him for life.  He commented:

“It was really nice to meet other like-minded chefs, all working at a high level.  It was a great group, mixed ages and backgrounds, and the Grande Cuisine guys were good fun, everyone gelled well.  It was nice to share our chef journeys, so much easier to do that outside the kitchen environment, when everyone is relaxed, you don’t often get a chance to do that with chefs outside your own workplace.  It was great for networking, I’ve met people I’ll keep in contact with forever now.”

It was a jam packed itinerary for the 2 days, Eddie talked us through his experience.

Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse for ‘tour and tasting experience’

“We arrived mid morning and had an hour to walk around the food hall, sampling different things.  The ingredients and produce on display was incredible, cured meats, oysters, cheese, macarons, chocolate, just wow!  The market is used by both chefs and the public, it was pretty special to see.  We were treated to a money can’t buy experience for lunch with an array of amazing food - cheeses, meat platters, oysters, a quenelle dish of lyon fish dumpling served with bisque, and a fish souffle which I tried.  It was a relaxed atmosphere, a nice informal way to start the trip and get to know everyone.”

Chocolate workshop with Sandrine Chappaz Chocolatier near Grenoble

“We then took a scenic bus trip to the Chocolatier.  It was like someone’s house with a workshop on the end, not what I expected at all!  They started as a hobby and it grew into a business, they’ve grown a lot.  They took us through the whole process from the bean to making the chocolate.  It’s not something I knew much about, chocolate is a specialist area, so it was really interesting.  They grow herbs and flowers in the garden to incorporate in the chocolate. They did special chocolates for the group with logos stamped on them, such attention to detail.  They are a family run business, but they supply a bunch of 2 and 3 star restaurants throughout France, so they’re obviously doing it well!”

Dinner at Chez le Per’ Gras in Grenoble

“It was a spectacular way to get to the restaurant for dinner, you had to take a cable car there, which was interesting for me as I’m not good with heights!  You were able to wander round the mountain, the views were incredible.  For dinner I had fois gras to start and stone bass for main, the French do starter main cheese then dessert.  It was a really nice dining experience, but the view was the star of the show.  To see the city lit up will stay with me for life.”

Tour of Athanor factory and experience of buying a bespoke suite

“Restaurant Andrew Fairlie worked with Athanor about 16 years ago, it’s an incredible piece of kit, so meeting them was a highlight.  They showed us a bespoke buyers demo as they would run through with a potential customer.  It is absolutely made to measure.  They come to your kitchen, film your service, and design a stove that works for you.  It’s measured to the mm that you need, giving you all the things you do need, but nothing unnecessary for you, so no wasted space.  It’s a long buying process to make sure it’s right, but the attention to detail was incredible, the craftsmanship, the customer care was second to none.  A very knowledgeable bunch of people who care about what they are doing.  This was my favourite part of the trip, learning about the product and everything that goes into it.  I didn’t know much about them before, the care aspect to their work, the passion they had, it really meant a lot to them, it was fascinating and really made an impression on me.  They spent a lot of time with us, asking about careers and goals, fantastic contacts to have.”

Lunch at Brasserie George, Lyon

“Our final lunch was pretty incredible too, the restaurant does 1200 covers per service which is insane, it was massive.  The staff never seemed stressed, they were all passionate about what they do, it felt very different to the UK!  We had a special menu for our group, good French cooking, the classics, they made beef tartare in front of you.  After lunch we got a tour of the place,  I was surprised how small the kitchen was for feeding so many people.  We got to go down into the cellars, see the food and wine, so much stock, but it was very organised, I guess it has to be to feed so many guests!”

The prizes for the Andrew Fairlie Scholarship are meant to be educational, to help with the chef’s knowledge and expertise, and it sounds like this definitely did that!  To learn from suppliers and producers, enjoy new dining experiences and see other kitchens, all helps a chef’s personal development.

Eddie said: “This really was a fantastic experience, thank you very much to Grande Cuisine for organising this and for allowing me to join the group!”