Behind the scenes at the new River Cottage chefs' school

The Staff Canteen visited River Cottage HQ in Devon to check out the new chefs' school and young apprenticeship scheme.

The first thing you see when you arrive at River Cottage HQ, just outside Axminster in Devon, is the

view down into the Park Farm valley with the famous River Cottage farmhouse nestling at the bottom amongst a patchwork quilt of fields, meadows and woods. You are surrounded by the sound of birds singing, lambs bleating and cows lowing lazily.

It all looks and sounds so idyllic that you begin to wonder if it's almost too perfect, as if the noises are a soundtrack and the trees and flowers some kind of psychedelic Disney props. I’m reminded of what the marketing coordinator Harriet Wild had emailed me the day before my arrival: “We’ll make sure the sheep are polished ready for your visit!” At the time I’d assumed this was tongue-in-cheek but looking around me now I begin to wonder… am I not in some kind of hallucinogenic fusion of The Truman Show and The Good Life?

We make our way down the hill towards the nerve centre of Park Farm. It takes some ten minutes to descend from the top to the bottom of the valley through the 100 acres of organic land supporting cows, sheep, ducks, chickens and pigs as well as dozens of different crops in fields, walled gardens, allotments, urban gardens and wild produce.

Eventually we arrive in the courtyard between the old 17^th century farmhouse and the newly rebuilt barn used for dining and events. It’s the building between the two, however that I’m here to see – the even newer cookery school which was opened last year to accommodate a new, government-funded chefs’ school and apprenticeship scheme.

Inside, the school is just as glossy and impressive as the surroundings; huge windows look out over the impossibly beautiful valley, spacious well-appointed work stations dot the room. Everything is shiny and clean and new. The young, flustered trainees bustling around the place with red faces probably don’t know how lucky they are, not until they get out into the real world of tiny cramped kitchens and hairy, sweaty head chefs anyway.

The group that are in today were all put forward by the Prince’s Trust. They are getting a taster of the River Cottage way before hopefully starting full time apprenticeships in September. I even get to try one of the dishes they’ve cooked. The other finished plates, I’m told, will go to St Petrock’s, a homeless charity in Exeter. Then, Just in case I’m about to be assailed by the feeling that this is all too good to be true, one of the apprentices promptly sets their pan on fire. Chef tutor, Stefani Smith, is quickly over to douse the flames. “I said put a splash in, not half a bottle,” she says with a mumsy roll of the eyes, a gesture which is accentuated by the fact that she is clearly pregnant.

Stefani, one of two full-time chef tutors came from a Michelin background before switching to teaching, first at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Cornwall then at a cookery school in Bristol before moving to River Cottage last March ready for the opening of the chefs’ school. She was attracted by the vision behind the scheme – to provide professional cookery qualifications (up to GNVQ level 3) combined with the River Cottage ethos of sustainability, locality, seasonality and good provenance.

“Standing in a kitchen just prepping food wasn’t really for me,” she says perched next to me on a serving bench with one eye still cast protectively over her students. I wanted to make more of a difference in the food industry. The best way I found was starting from the beginning, where they train, and trying to have that rippling effect. We train them in a way that we think is right – environmentally right and skills-wise right and we want that effect to go rippling through the food industry.”

Trying to fuse River Cottage ethics with traditional NVQ cooking qualifications wasn’t without its challenges however according to Stefani: “Most colleges have a set recipe pack that they bring out year after year whereas we have to change ours all the time taking into consideration what we can get from the garden here and the other two farms we work with.”

Finding the apprentices work placements that match up to River Cottage’s ethos is another one of the challenges that Stefani and the team face but it’s also a way of spreading that ethos: “We try and influence those businesses in positive ways like having different suppliers work with them if they’re not up to scratch; we try and mould them into our ethos so it goes hand-in-hand with the training of the student.”

The students also have the chance to become River Cottage’s annual Rising Star, a competition which sees the winner do their work placement at River Cottage HQ itself working alongside group head chef Gill Meller and the team.

Last year’s Rising Star and River Cottage’s first, is 18-year-old Sam Lomas. Sam first heard about the competition while checking his emails on the bus home from school. “It sounded like everything I was most interested in," he tells me beaming at the memory and looking like a young Prince Harry.

After the initial application process Sam had to create a video of himself making a recipe that conveyed his passion for food. He chose to make his own pizza oven and cook a homemade pizza in it. Although the video “didn’t massively go to plan,” it got him into the live final at River Cottage where the five finalists had to cook a dish of their choice in one hour, to be judged by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall no less.

Sam triumphed with his dish of grilled mackerel, beetroot and horseradish salad, and goat’s cheese and thyme soda bread, and has been training, working – and living – at River Cottage HQ since September. Since then the learning curve has been steep: “I remember thinking when I was doing the competition that I knew a bit about food, then I got here and it’s actually, no, absolutely nothing.”

Despite the challenges – he’s still getting used to the long hours – Sam is more in love than ever with the River Cottage ideal and even sees his long-term future there: “River Cottage is going to keep on growing so I’m hoping there’ll be some opportunities here, continuing the work that Gill and Hugh have already done and taking it to some new levels.”

Could I be looking at the fresh face of the next Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall? Only time will tell I guess.

For now it is time for me to leave. I make my way back up to the top of the valley on my own. On the way I pass some sheep grazing in a meadow. The words “polished sheep” ring in my ears. I take a second look. Am I actually thinking about checking this out… I mean… really? I tentatively approach then hesitate. Before I can turn back or go any further though, one sheep turns and, whilst fixing me with a withering stare, shits all over the place.

There’s my answer I guess. I turn around, ashamed at my earlier cynicism. I guess some places really are as idyllic as they seem on TV. Still, I might Google “polishing sheep” when I get home… then again, maybe not.