Back to the Floor
Imagine you're a young contract catering chef about to spend a day in the kitchens of an acclaimed 
Michelin-starred restaurant. You'd be anxious, surely; eager to please, definitely. But fancy a bit of extra pressure? No thanks.
So pity Daniel Mariner, chef de partie with contract catering firm BaxterStorey. He turned up for his stage at the Vineyard in Berkshire only to discover the person stationed next to him was his boss, BaxterStorey chief executive Alastair Storey.
A meeting like this could only happen because John Campbell, executive chef at the Vineyard, is a consultant for BaxterStorey, an arrangement that means BaxterStorey chefs complete a variety of stages and workshops in Campbell's kitchen every year. A chat between Campbell and Storey resulted in Storey deciding it was about time he went back to the floor himself to experience the training and development his chefs were going through.
If Mariner looked a bit sheepish, there was no need - Storey was just as nervous. "You don't want to make a pillock of yourself," Storey says candidly, "but I could do with the greatest of ease."
Storey's first challenge was some basic larder prep, including meat and poultry preparation such as trimming down sirloins. Then there was bread-making; later some risottos, soups and soufflés; and finally some chocolate work - all on his first day.
So how did he do? "I was always rubbish on the pastry section," says Storey, who started his career - after hotel school - as a chef-manager with Sutcliffe in 1975. "And I demonstrated how rubbish I continue to be." Campbell disagrees, saying that Storey applied himself well and that his butchery skills, in particular, were very good. Storey's response? "Only because I've been doing nothing but practise for the past four
weeks."
On the second day, Storey was a little more involved in service, helping out on the sections and preparing dishes. He boned out half a deer and was given what he describes as "the job from hell" - de-veining foie gras. "Surely only a job you give to people who have really pissed you off," he adds.
The two days culminated in Storey designing two whole courses - a sea bass dish and a chocolate pudding - for a six-course meal for his and Campbell's wives, who came in to eat that evening. "I wasn't allowed near the paying guests, but I could cook for them." He helped to cook all the dishes, but prepared his own two dishes from mise-en-place through to plating. "He was a natural," says Campbell. "If he had carried on as a chef, he would have been one of the best around."
Praise indeed, but what about the more crucial test - the wives? Apparently they both had to choose which dishes out of the six were their favourites, without knowing who had cooked them - Storey's against Campbell's, amateur against pro. You can guess which ones they went for. That's right - it was a
fairytale ending - the sea bass and the chocolate. "Actually I think I was bloody good," Storey laughs. What a turnaround. "John has just been so inspirational."
The collaboration
Campbell joined Wilson Storey Halliday in 2002 before it joined forces with BaxterSmith at the end of 2004 to become BaxterStorey, the UK's largest privately owned contract caterer. The partnership is now one of the longest-running arrangements between a top restaurant chef and a contract caterer.
Although there have been many collaborations between chefs and contract caterers before, importantly this one has nothing to do with marketing. Forget names over doors and signature dishes on menus - this arrangement is based entirely on training and promoting effective kitchen management. "This is not about client entertainment or impressing people," Storey says. "This is about improving things and is long term."
For 15 BaxterStorey chefs, a week-long stage at the Vineyard is the culmination of a programme designed for the company's most promising talent. Among other things, it involves learning about sourcing, training in fishmongery and butchery, cooking tutorials and visits to major markets such as Rungis on the outskirts of Paris.
BaxterStorey executive chef Rik Razza estimates that as many as 75 other chefs from the company will visit the Vineyard for at least half a day. "We do a Chef Eats Out-style event which finishes with a two-hour question-and-answer session with John," Razza says. "Other courses will teach financial management, kitchen structure, systems and administration - and of course they will also be exposed to the quality of the food."
Storey says the courses help to show the chefs that the company is putting something back into their careers. "If we invest in training and development, we retain more staff and they become more knowledgeable."
One BaxterStorey chef, Matt Hay, head chef at the company's Barclays contract in London's Canary Wharf, enjoyed it so much at the Vineyard that he spent three months there. "For someone like Matt the experience was wonderful because he will be cooking similar types of dish in his own kitchen," Storey says.
But what about BaxterStorey's other, less prestigious contracts? On the face of it, the kitchens at the Vineyard are a world away from those for an average B&I set-up.
"The systems employed here are applicable to all our staff restaurants," Storey says. "Because we have to get all our food out in an hour, getting the planning and organisation right is vital. Often this business is not about food, it's about the thought processes that go into the food."
After his own experience in the kitchens here, Storey can vouch for the importance of that planning. "Working with the chefs here during service, when you see hundreds of components come together, you see how much they have to plan," he says. "If you haven't got your act together in advance, you are dead."
Certainly the Vineyard is hard to beat as an example of an effective, systematic and well-drilled kitchen. The brigade is far from the pan-throwing, expletive-spouting stereotype, neither underpinned by machismo nor overwhelmed by shouting. In fact the atmosphere is like that of a mini chefs' academy.
Campbell, who is Victor Ceserani's successor as co-author for the newly updated Practical Cookery (to be published in March), is obsessed with the importance of training. "If you do training properly the first time around, then you don't have to do it again," he says.
Any chef who arrives at the Vineyard on a stage is given a complete timetable for their stay and close-quarter supervision from members of the brigade. Stick the work experience person in the corner this is not. "He is a huge motivator and a great trainer," says Razza. "No matter what level of chef you are, he is always ready to spend time with you."
But Campbell is quick to stress the partnership works both ways. "We have 17 chefs to cope with about 150 covers," he says. "They often have five chefs managing to feed 600 covers. I challenge the top 100 restaurant chefs in this country to serve those 600 meals with the same resources these food-service chefs have - and produce food as good as theirs. We have a lot to learn from them."
Most organised
Certainly the restaurant sector has often derided contract catering chefs for leading an easy life, a view Campbell loathes. His point, picking up on what Storey said before, is that it is organisation and planning in a kitchen that make it successful. He suggests contract caterers are some of the most organised in the industry because of the pressures of their particular market.
"The best kitchens are financially secure, ethically run, have good health and safety records and deliver proper training," he says. "Unfortunately they are very few and far between at Michelin-star level - but everywhere in contract catering."
For Campbell, the chefs passing through his kitchen also help the senior members of his team to develop their management skills. "It is good to see how my staff react," he says. "You see their skills at diplomacy and how good they are at guiding and decanting their knowledge to others. When they go into their own kitchens, that is what they'll need to do."
Finally, Campbell admits his involvement with BaxterStorey has given him access to a mentor - Storey himself. "Alastair gives a shit," says Campbell. "And he gives me a bit of guidance that I wouldn't normally get."
Of course the ultimate question is whether, after completing his stage here, Storey might be prepared to go back to his own floor. You know, check whether the systems he has experienced here are alive and kicking in a BaxterStorey-run staff kitchen. The one where Daniel Mariner works, perhaps?
"Oh I don't know, I guess I should," laughs Storey, not entirely with confidence. "It would have to be the right chef, though, someone who was not going to treat it just as a chance for sport. After these two days, I think I'd feel safer here with John."