Eden School of Culinary Art

To prepare culinary artisans with the procurement, preparation and presentation skill of good food and wine in the Southern and South Eastern Cape by focusing on the field of Culinary Art

Etude School of Hospitality

As a new addition to the François Ferreira Academy, Etude School of Hospitality aims to train hospitality professionals that add value to the hospitality industry.

Our Students

To: The Parents and Sponsors, of our Chefs Course Students, 0111 January 2011 – June 2012.
01-Jan-2011

The first semester of the year is drawing to a close, and as parents and sponsors, the progress the students are making towards becoming qualified chefs, are for obvious reasons of importance to you.

The first four months of our course, centers around empowering the students with theoretical knowledge and basic cooking, baking, preparing and serving skills – the under-pinning knowledge for what lies ahead.The schedule is filled with topics relating to, health, hygiene, first aid, cleaning and safety in the kitchen, as well as nutrition. The students attend a range of informative demonstrations, and assignments on a variety of topics are completed.

Their French vocabulary has been vastly expanded by Madame Chanel’s French classes, and you might have been introduced to some Cake Decorating techniques or an assignment for e.g. Event Planning – that is to say if your were in the close proximity of one of our students. Wearing a chefs uniform with pride and installing a professional image, are of primary important to us. The pride and enthusiasm with which this specific group walked in that first morning when they were allowed to dressed in (almost) full uniforms, were an absolute joy to behold. (The caps only arrived a few days later).

We include some photos to give you an idea of the activities:

The finer art of Cake Decorating taught by Chef Annemarie and Chef Louis:

Students prepared for and served at various private functions as well as our Friday Lunches, open to the public. You will receive information about our lunches and the Offal Evenings in due course as we would like you to join us.

An unplanned opportunity arose during a baseball tournament held at the PW Botha sport fields , when the needs of an estimated 2,000 participants and spectators made us re-schedule and change the cooking school to a great extend, into an ‘impromptu take away station’ for four days! The demand for food were insatiable and orders for often 35 items at a time made us move at the speed of light as the queues got longer and longer. During this time we used 265 liters of pancake batter, 100 kg chicken, 60 doz. eggs and approximately 240 loaves of bread! It turned out to be, a splendid team effort, great fun and we are of the opinion that the students gained valuable experience.

ESCA also took part in George’s 200 Year Celebrations and the students had great fun using their kitchen equipment and utensils as musical instruments – you could not miss them! The students arrived back starry eyed from the month’s practical experience at Simola during May, and they seem unable to stop talking about what they have learned and the ‘amazing’ time they had learning from Chef Delia. A great compliment for the students was that the Simola staff found them an extraordinary enthusiastic and friendly group, hungry for knowledge which inspired the Simola staff in their turn to put extra effort into their training. Back from Simola, the pace increases substantially as all stops are pulled out during this, the intensive cooking and baking phase. The individual students now have the opportunity to acquire the practical skills that will serve them well and allow them to excel during their six months of mentorship in the industry, that starts in November. The photo below was taken at the Chaine’s Gala Dinner at the Simola Hotel on 28 May. The staff, which includes our full time Chef students, Produced a 5* meal that received huge accolades.