With a splendid super food salad starter (that included kale, pomegranate, cous cous, orange, melon seeds and beetroot) the scene was set for a fabulous dinner.
When the restaurant served up a superlative roast pork loin main course accompanied by roast new potatoes, glazed carrots and cider sauce, the guests expressed their delight.
Rounding off with a dessert of chocolate brownie, warm cherries and ice cream it proved to be a culinary success all round.
You won’t be able to book, though, for this or any other Saturday as the ‘pop up’ restaurant was a one-off.
And the ‘restaurant’ kitchens are already back to doing their day job ….serving students at Thomas Clarkson Academy, Wisbech
For the night was a test not only of catering skills but business acumen and followed an intensive ‘school diners’ project’ to introduce Key Stage 4 students to the world of work and enterprise.
The evening was presided over by experienced chef Mark Lloyd whose credits include a London and New York restaurant as well as appearances on Masterchef Live, BBC Good Food show, Grand Designs live and cooking with celebrities such as Kevin McCloud.
Mark also runs a training consultancy and has been behind the school diners project,
He first visited Thomas Clarkson a few weeks ago to put together a team of some 20 students and then left them to it – to organise food purchases, decide job roles for the evening, and to put together a guest list.
Diners were invited to pay what they felt the meal was worth – with the proceeds being used to buy the ingredients and then decide, as a team, what to do with any surplus funds.
Lisa Tarsitano, assistant principal, said: “The project has been set up to help to teach young people about the importance of hard work and team work.
“In preparation, the students decided to stay after school recently to bake cakes and raised over £100 with their efforts.”
She said the idea of asking guests to pay what they think the service and meal was worth was “to encourage the students to work hard in order to gain a larger profit”.
The mayor of Wisbech Steve Tierney was among guests and he described it as “a truly exceptional meal, prepared and served flawlessly. Everybody seemed to enjoy it as much as I did.”
He added: “The students and staff must be congratulated on the fare, which was as good as any restaurant I’ve eaten in recently.”
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