Participants get to work at the first L'ateliers des Chefs class, held at its new Le Meridien Dubai venue.
“When you train the consumer and teach them different things, their minds open up and they will repond to new ideas better,” he pointed out.
Verre’s Pickop added: “In somewhere like Dubai, where there isn’t everyday produce and you can’t guarantee that you’re always able to get the ingredients you want, it’s vital to educate people. The more people demand something, the more suppliers will try to supply it, so it’ll broaden what we can find here.”
This attitude of chefs making culinary education beneficial for business seems to be reflected in the region’s increasing fondness for cookery schools.
French company L’atelier des Chefs is a prime example.
The firm, which has just launched its first in-hotel cookery school at Le Méridien Dubai, hopes the prototype school will soon be “copied and pasted all across the Méridien network”, according to Nicholas Bergerault, who founded the company with his brother François in 2004.
“Two years ago we were approached by Le Méridien and they said they were trying to rebuild a culinary image within the hotels and were interested in our concept because they felt it could help the new positioning,” explained Bergerault.
“All the cookery schools you usually hear about tend to be high-end schools with long classes that are very expensive, so what we intended to do was launch a new generation of cookery classes — this means short classes, from half an hour to two hours, that are not very expensive; in Dubai it will be from AED 120-380 (US $33-103).”
On top of the obvious revenue in-house cookery classes can generate for an outlet, Bergerault maintains they can even encourage new custom.
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“Classes with a chef make people consider the outlet’s overall service and food from a fresh perspective; it’s really rebuilding the link between the chef and their customer,” he asserted.
“So we’re not at all a threat [to restaurant business], we’re just adding something new.”
Taste of Dubai’s Crick predicted it would become increasingly popular for restaurants to branch out into cookery classes in future.
“What chefs want to do is get the consumer to buy the brand in its entirety; they’re trying to widen the opportunity for people to come into the hotel and the restaurant,” she pointed out.
“Culinary classes are their opportunity to meet their consumers on a one-to-one basis — and thereby help achieve wider brand recognition for their outlets.”
Even celebrity chef Gary Rhodes said he would be keen to introduce classes at his fine dining restaurant Rhodes Mezzanine, located in Grosvenor House Dubai.
“It‘s certainly something I’d like to talk to Grosvenor House about. I love tutoring pople, explaining my feelings about a dish and the philosophy behind it,” he told Caterer Middle East.
“That’s something which I really love and would definitely be interested in getting involved with. It could be called the Rhodes School,” he added. “What a great idea!”
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