Catering experts Cucina opens evening bistro at school restaurant

Cucina, which serves fresh food to more than 25,000 pupils at 30 schools up and down the country, has opened the bistro at Arthur Mellows Village College in Peterborough. Students design the menus and spend two days preparing food for the bistro, serving the meals on the third evening. Current menus, which pupils have learnt to prepare and cook, include: demi-tasse of sweet potato, coconut and spinach soup with Caribbean prawn skewers, roasted breast of chicken with sorrel butter, confit shallots, asparagus and mushroom risotto and lemon tart with soft fruits and crème fraiche. Steve Collins, Cucina's head chef at Arthur Mellows Village College, said: "The bistro evenings promote the links between curriculum activities in the school, whilst drawing on the expertise and the services that Cucina provides for the school. It is important to be committed to providing healthy meals at the school but also to feed the students' minds and create enthusiasm and knowledge about the food they eat. "The menu selection shows the students have an understanding of how to complement flavours and textures whilst also drawing on the student's knowledge of different cultures and tastes. He added: "As a group, the student's feedback was that they felt they had developed their knowledge of the products they worked with and also how to work under pressure. For myself, I get a kick out of seeing enthusiasm and giving people a sense of accomplishment. When you see the smiles as the students walk back into the kitchen, you realise that all the hard work was worth it."