Elior development chef Mark Crowe has admitted to having nightmares after seeing the contestants on The Apprentice attempt last week's catering challenge.

Certainly it turned into a bad dream for boys' team leader and hospitality worker Rocky Andrews owner of Fatso's Filling Station, who was fired as a result of his team's efforts.

Crowe told Kitchen Rat: "As a development chef for Avenance, we have many prestigious City companies as our clients and the challenges facing the The Apprentice contestants in last night's episode were very familiar.

"Our City clients demand and rightly expect the very best standards of food and service when entertaining their guests. Last week's programme highlighted just why this should be left to the professionals. I am still having nightmares about the second-rate canapés the teams served, and I certainly won't be using any of them on my new summer hospitality menus!"

Nor will Sir Alan Sugar, one suspects.

The Apprentice Catering challenge>>

Hospitality hopefulls escape the boardroom in the first Apprentice>>

Lunch on the 31st floor of the Canary Wharf Barclay's Bank building, with a snow-covered scene spread out via London docks, the winding path of the Thames, and the hills of Kent in the distance. Drink: 2002 premier cru St Emilion, with a fillet of rare breed beef, and surrounded by £8 million-worth of art.

The image of contract catering can for some be one of hospital slops and turkey twizlers, but that's not the reality in every single one of the foodservice sites.

Baxter Storey, for example, has this Barclays bank contract - and yes there are still employees there after the recent culls. And they can offer their employees the chance to work in the outstanding directors' rooms on the 31st floor, or at the Benugo outlet part-way up the tower.

The company also operates at Slaughter & May, the lawyers, where a team of ex-restaurant chefs work in the kitchen, serving up home-made pies and Scotch eggs, along with a range of modern British dishes for partners

Cooking for foodservice has more of a 9-5 lifestyle, few split shifts - and even some glamour.

Baxter Storey's Mike Smith to step down from managing director role >>

Baxter Storey loses senior Holroyd Howe director >>

Take a peek at this new design for a conference centre in Utrecht. Wall-to-wall carpets, fake brass fittings and mock oak panelling it is not.

The look is from architecture and design consultancy 123DV, and is part of the Jaarbeurs complex in Holland, with eight meeting rooms, plus a main congress hall that holds 800 people. The roof there is transparent, so it feels like you're meeting under the wide open sky. Oh, the romance of it all as you scribble notes on management change strategy.

Principal Hotels rebrands after Hayley Conference Centres buy >>

Compass Group retains contract with the Wellcome Trust >>

"Golden brown texture like sun, Lays me down with my mind she runs, Throughout the night, No need to fight, Never a frown with golden brown" was inspiration enough for one new firm.

Stuck for a name that didn't consist of the two founders' surnames, Simon Elliot, who last month launched Gold & Brown with partner Andrea Walwyn at the Academy Health Club in Harrogate, Yorkshire, heard the above Stranglers hit on his car radio and the rest, as they say, is history.

The company, which also has an online ordering business offering a range of locally sourced and ethical British goodies including products from Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate, has dubbed its cafe/delicatessen hybrid at the academy as a Caffètessen and plans two more outlets before Christmas.

Gold & Brown's website certainly impressed judges at Caterersearch's Web Awards last week who named it as their inaugural Foodservice Website winner.

So perhaps Queen's Don't Stop Me Now , Yazz's The Only Way Is Up or even the Sweet Smell Of Sucess by the Stranglers might be more appropriate for 2009.

Heathrow's Terminal 5 may at last be running like the finely tuned machine always intended but it seems likely that behind the scenes there's still the occasional bit of turbulence.

Kitchen Rat caught up with several former Sutcliffe caterers recently and got to chatting about what a balls-up the launch of the new terminal had been this summer.

However what goes on front of house is, according to those that used to work there in the distant past, only the half of it.

Kitchen Rat spies down at the grand unveiling of the Westfield London Shopping centre today have reported that all is not well on the Western front.

The 17 restaurants along the Southern Terrace of the £1.6b retail development in White City, including BBC Masterchef winner Thomasina Miers's second Wahaca outlet, Tom Etridge's latest concept, Ito, and Swiss vegetarian group Tibits as well as chains Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Wagamama and The Real Greek  have been forced to close as the gas supply has been turned off...

Despite the massive media coverage and clamouring crowds there will be no food available on this floor of the shopping centre.

Shame. We'd hoped it would be cooking with gas, etc etc.

New concepts make their debut at Westfield>>

Contract caterer Charlton House has won the deal to feed staff at London law firm Mayer Brown.

Under a three-year deal the caterer will manage hospitality services, previously run by Elior's Avenance, at Mayer Brown's Pilgrim Street office until February 2009.

After this time the law firm is relocating to a new site in the Broadgate development in the City at 201 Bishopsgate.

Services at the new site will include a staff restaurant for the first time, as well as hospitality, fine-dining, vending and a coffee shop for the firm's 750 staff and partners.

Kitchen Rat hears Charlton House pipped rivals BaxterStorey, Lexington and Harbour & Jones to the gig.

Charlton House regains 'Ready Steady Cook' crown>>

Charlton House wins Allianz Insurance deal>>

FSA reports on healthier workplace meal drive>>

Crown Group's Kudos wins Honourable Artillery Company deal>>

Contract catering round-up>>

It seems Mark Philpott, managing director of City caterer Vacherin, was by necessity a bit of a jammy dodger in his youth.

Although he's now running a high-end caterer feeding hedge fund, PR and marketing types in the capital it wasn't always this way.

Arriving as a fresh faced 21 year old in the big smoke, Philpott saw an advert for work in the south of France and jumped at the opportunity: Namely selling ice-creams on the beaches of Saint-Tropez and Cannes based at the prestigious Carlton hotel.

Full of dreams of becoming a film-star Philpott arrived in a gloriously hot south of France only to find out that he'd be camping in a field near the hotel and selling doughnuts!

Needless to say demand for doughnuts in the sweltering heat wasn't high and Philpott encountered rival gangs on the beeches that - no doubt on a sugar fuelled high - chased him from their patch. 

Yes, it was either a hasty retreat or the risk of getting Krispy Kremed.

It seems Cater Link has impressed the good people at Camden Council in London as it's set for an an extention to its initial three-year school meals contract.

The caterer, which is part of the same stable that owns business and industry caterer BaxterStorey, was appointed in 2006 after parent protests forced out Compass Group's Scolarest from the £2.5m a year contract.

With the new nutritional  standards coming into force at primary schools this summer and plenty of challenges remaining at secondary level, hospitality magazine Caterer is running a School Meals Survey to tie in with its Education Month in July. So if you're a caterer with views on school meals share them.

Camden drops Scolarest for school meals>>

Food inflation hits school caterers>>

Sodexo chef named School Chef of the Year 2008>

100% School meals uptake shocker (Caterer Blog)>>

Pol Roger is one of the few remaining family-owned champagne houses in France.

Although not as large and therefore well known a producer as the likes of Moet & Chandon or Veuve Clicquot (who have between them almost half the market), the house, which was founded in 1849, is highly regarded within the wine trade.

Suitably bespoke city caterer Vacherin called in recently at Pol Roger's Epernay base, which is situated in a splendid manor house, with a mix of directors, managers and clients on an educational trip organised via Laytons wine merchants.

Pol Roger's Hubert de Billy, director of sales and marketing for France, was on hand to give an extremely entertaining tour of the adjacent production facility and cellars.

It seems with demand for the fizzy stuff being fuelled by emerging markets such as China and India, Champagne is already struggling to meet this unquenchable global demand and finding enough grapes for production is much more difficult than finding customers.