Taking part in the Kitchen Rivals charity event at Lodore Falls Hotel & Spa has provided me with a unique insight into the inner-workings of a busy hospitality business, and the power of successful collaboration and teamwork.
I’m much more comfortable advising hospitality businesses from the other side of the table but I arrived at Lodore Falls feeling slightly less relaxed than the average visitor, apprehensively prepared for my day’s role as a ‘Kitchen Rival.’
The pressure was on. It was the first time Armstrong Watson had taken part in the friendly, charity event, competing against a team from Knights Solicitors, in partnership with Lake District Hotels Ltd, to feed a room of 90 invited guests.
Each firm selected three groups, one team to cook in the kitchen, one to act as front of house, and another to host the tables, which were full of invited hungry guests.
The overarching aim of the night was to raise as much money as possible to split between Carlisle Youth Zone, Keswick Youth Services and Cumbria Community Foundation and with £17,000 raised on the night, added to match funding for the community foundation’s portion, the event raised £23,080 in total.
Guests were asked to pay what they thought their meal was worth, which added some real pressure and friendly competition to the proceedings. The winning team would receive, and therefore raise for the chosen charities, the most money at the end of the night.
As an accountant who specialises in the hospitality, food & drink and leisure sectors, I was fascinated to see first-hand behind the scenes of such a fantastic local business and have my own brief taste of what it is like to work in the sector itself. However, whilst I do enjoy cooking, my main experience of a working kitchen is from my ever so slightly unhealthy obsession with Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, which certainly added to the nerves!
Having received the menu in advance, I hadn’t even heard of some of the components involved and I certainly hadn’t ever attempted to cook them myself. Thankfully, my nerves were instantly settled when Executive Head Chef, Mark Harris, was introduced to us, alongside our Red Team chef Bobby Fillingham, Head Chef of Skiddaw Hotel.
Throughout the whole day, I was struck by just how patient Mark, Bobby, and all the team at Lodore Falls were with us amateurs who had invaded their kitchen. With their help, we rotated around different tasks designed to come together to form the perfect menu. This included a session with expert pastry chef, Lindon, who showed us a fascinating method to make the spongiest bright green sponge to accompany dessert, and the assistance of the extremely talented Alexa on the souffle starter, something I never thought I would be able to say I had cooked.
They were even very patient and forgiving when I over-whisked the vanilla cream to what can only be described as a ‘scrambled egg consistency’!
My Armstrong Watson colleagues, Richard Askew, Adam Pattinson and Pam Mcleod joined me in the kitchen as we nervously prepared our menu - which included twice-baked stilton and walnut cheese souffle, turkey ballotine and ‘the snowball’ - whilst our guests were greeted by Armstrong Watson’s front-of-house team of David Squire, Steve McCullough, Lauren Graham & Dave Broughton.
Despite the pressure to carefully present 45 plates for every course - and ensuring they went out in tens so that a full table was served at the same time - sloppy chutney, deflated souffle and wayward walnuts were avoided, and a successful service was completed all round.
After a frantic period, we waited nervously for our guests to finish so that we could join them and see just how our food had been received. To our delight, it went down a treat across the entire room and full stomachs, empty plates and generous donations provided a satisfying conclusion to the evening. As one of our guests kindly said, ‘who knew that excellence in professional services could so seamlessly translate to hospitality.’
Although Armstrong Watson were declared the winning team, it was the incredible generosity of the guests on the night, who also donated to a raffle and auction, that ensured that the charities were the real winners.
Whilst I can’t say I’m looking to swerve from accountancy into a culinary career, what I did take from this wonderful experience is an extended respect for the professionalism, collaboration and ability to succeed under pressure that those working in hospitality and food and drink have to exude.
Thank you to Lake District Hotels for hosting, the staff at Lodore Falls, the teams from Armstrong Watson and Knights who participated, and finally, the generous guests who donated.
