Recently in Training Category

In an interview in today's Metro, the great man of the Oxfordshire restaurant doesn't hold back with his thoughts on the two high-profile chefs.

Apparently when he was training Pierre White at Le Manoir, the volatile chef was "a nightmare," says Blanc. "Marco had to prove he was the best all the time. He always had to set up some sort of competition in the kitchen, which is not good because it makes people feel a bit scared."

As for Gordon, Raymondo is asked what he thought of the time the chef dressed up in disguise and pretended to be one of Blanc's fans at a book signing.

The response: "I find that very sad. He has a number of businesses and I know how tough that is. So to come and play the clown at one of my signings...what's the point? What is the bloody point? I didn't get it".

And: "He is the only one to get it. What is he trying to do and say? I just laugh. My God, has that guy got nothing else to do? He must be very well organised in his business if he has time to do stuff like that."

Later on Raymond does say: "I just want to add that Marco is a good friend of mine. And if he made a few mistakes on the way, well, don't we all?"

So one of them gets off a bit more lightly, at least.

Blanc's The Restaurant winners to launch Marlow pub >>

Marco criticised for belittling waiters on 'Hell's Kitchen' >>

 You sometimes hear managers talking about their staff as if they're criminals - 'all that pilfering that goes on, nothing I can do about it'. Hands in the till, they're all at it, apparently.

Well, now guests can be served by real-life criminals - convicted juveniles at the Neudeck jail in Munich.

The £11.5m conversion of the prison building into a four-star hotel will involve the recruitment of "teenagers and young people who have only otherwise known violence, crime, drugs and a lack of orientation", according to Hildegard Denninger of one of the project's sponsors, Biss magazine.

In echoes of a certain person's restaurant training project, 15 youngsters will be trained by full-time staff. Some of those involved in running the programme will include social workers.

Our advice? Probably best not order a Bloody Mary.

European hotels suffer a dismal August of plunging profitability >>

Jamie Oliver backed Fifteen Leeds takes step closer to reality >>

Charlton House chief executive Robyn Jones has got in touch with Kitchen Rat to share an amusing tale of customer service that went a little too far.

"On arriving at the Vineyard at Stockcross (the two Michelin-starred restaurant in Berkshire) last Friday for a dinner with friends, we were welcomed by the front of house manager wishing to relieve us of our warm winter coats," Jones recalls. So far so good.

"I handed over my shawl whereby he just stood and waited for me to pass over my next layer." Here's where standards begin to drop.

"I was in fact wearing a 'coat dress' with very little underneath!" Jones adds. "I declined the gentleman's kind offer but did wonder whether the Friday night entertainment had failed to show?!"

Vineyard MD Andrew McKenzie has admitted the operation's business model will have to be more flexible to cope with the recession, but we're not sure naked customers is the way forward.

Just what does a Premiership footballer want for? Not money, fan adulation, fancy cars or swanky homes...hell they even have someone to clean their expensive custom-made boots.

But wait, Kitchen Rat has learnt that Chelsea football club's apprenticeships are missing, literally, mama's cooking.

Yes it's all very exciting being plucked from obscurity and given your own swish London gaff but most of these kids don't know how to fend for themselves or cook.

Onto the field of play has stepped London's Westminster Kingsway College (WKC), which features Jamie Oliver as an alumni, to teach six Chelsea youngsters at a time how to cook, a task that will take place at the kitchen facilities at the club's state-of-the-art training facility in Cobham, Surrey.