The Staff Canteen Live 2018 Networking Lunch at Norse

This month The Staff Canteen Live Networking Lunch was hosted by Norse in Harrogate and our headline sponsor was Pommery champagne.

• Read more about The Staff Canteen Networking Lunches
• Norse plead for help from customers to prevent the Harrogate restaurant from closing
• The next The Staff Canteen Live Networking Lunch will be at Carters of Moseley on Monday, April 9. Register your interest for the event here.

Our chefs and sponsors joined us at Norse for one hell of a tasting menu by head chef Simon Jewitt and his team.

Chefs

This month we were in the north and we had a great list of chefs joining us for our Networking Lunch from Harrogate, Leeds, Manchester and York. The chefs who attended were Ronnie Simpson, chef de partie, Horto; Craig Rogan, head chef, Hudson’s; Ashley Binder, head chef, Middlethorpe Hall; Matt Hunter, director of operations, The Star Inn the City; Adam Humphrey, chef owner, Arras; Andrew Mangan, head chef, Nidd Hall; Adam Corrick, sous chef, Hotel du Vin in York; Douglas Crampton, head chef, James Martin Manchester; Paul Jackson, chef owner, The Hare at Scawton; Jonathan Hawthorne, chef owner, XO Supper Club; Simon Firth, group executive chef, Thai Leisure Group; Chris McPhee, head chef, The Terrace at Swinton Park and Luke Cockerill, head chef, Angel on the Green.

The menu at Norse

Thanks to our headline sponsor Pommery, guests were not treated to glasses of champagne on arrival and a fantastic selection of canapes but all the following courses were also paired with Pommery champagne from their range.

We invite all our chefs and sponsors to take a look at the kitchen at our lunches but the kitchen at Norse was too small for a tour so Simon kindly chatted to small groups about his operation.

Then it was on to the first course of duck yolk, wild garlic and smoked almond paired with Pommery Cuvée Louise 2004. Another favourite was the hogget, potato, hibiscus and maple paired with Pommery Grand Cru 2006 and one of the two desserts was chocolate, skyr and quinioa paired with Pommery Wintertime Blanc de Noirs NV.

On hosting the lunch Simon said: “It’s slightly terrifying! But it’s fun and it’s nice to have a load of chefs who hopefully understand the premise and they can relate to the dishes because they understand the techniques.”

He added: “Exposure is as important as getting the business model right, if people don’t come you can be cooking the best food in the world and no one would know. So, it’s important that we do things like this to keep that exposure going but also the networking side to the lunch is great.”

What the chefs and sponsors had to say about The Staff Canteen live networking lunch

Adrian Beckett, Off Trade Director for ‎Vranken Pommery UK, which was our headline sponsor for this lunch, said: “I think it’s been a nice and unique opportunity to delve into the more complex styles that we produce because typically champagne is thought of quite one dimensionally. There are lots of different styles which are capable of being well paired to a variety of different foods which we have been able to show today by working our way through a menu of meat, fish and desserts and pairing quite successfully.”

He added: “It’s always nice to get that face to face, genuine, one on one feedback. It’s been interesting to hear from the chefs what they have thought of Pommery and how they might be able to use it going forward.

“I think if you have a product or a brand which is well placed to fit in this networking lunch environment and the types of restaurants and catering these chefs work within, then I would absolutely suggest that suppliers should get involved. You don’t get better exposure and feedback of your products than at an event like this.”

One of the chefs at this month’s lunch was Ash Binder from Middlethorpe Hall. He said: “You get chained to the stove a lot of the time and you don’t get much chance to go out and see people – so it’s a good meet and greet.

"You get peppered with emails and you don’t pay them the attention you pay a person in front of you talking about a product. The goodie bag you get as part of the lunch is a great way to take away the products, try them out and see if you like them.”

On The Staff Canteen Networking Lunch, Craig Rogan from Hudson’s added: “It’s a good idea and it’s a great way to meet other chefs in the same area, see what they are doing and in a relaxed environment. And the champagne pairing has been really interesting, I didn’t know there were so many choices.”

The lunch was sponsored by ChefWorks UK, Seafood from Norway, HIT Training, Champagne Pommery , Maple Syrup and Lactalis Professional.