I am an undergraduate chef who has passion, dedication, attention to detail and a good work ethic. I also have good practical and communication skills which are all qualities I believe will help me succeed as a chef de cuisine.

I have completed a 3-year Professional Cookery diploma and have now moved onto a four year Culinary Arts Management Degree course to further my knowledge, to help with my aspirations of owning my own restaurant.

During the first year, I gained experience in the kitchen environment; including the preparation, cooking and serving of food in the staff and student canteen and Bistro cafe.

Through the second year I continued developing my skills by working in the colleges on site Brassiere style restaurant which has been awarded with the AA Highly Commended Status, which is equivalent to two AA rosettes in Industry.

I also got involved with some of the functions at college where I was preparing high quality food for up to eighty people for the likes of Wing Yip and Mars, who asked the college to provide a dinner for them.

During my second year I was given the opportunity to work with some fantastic chefs, in January 2015 I did a two-week work placement at the Michelin Star restaurant ‘Adams’ in Birmingham, where I assisted in the preparation of food and was also given the opportunity to help the head chef and sous chef on the pass plating up the food.

I learned so much about Michelin star rated food which I hope to incorporate in my own food in years to come. I was also given the opportunity to help another Michelin Star chef, Adam Bennett, during his preparations for the Bocuse D’or finals 2015 in Lyon, France. With this I also got to travel to Lyon to watch the finals, and support Adam in the competition. It was fantastic to watch all the competing chefs and see how they interpreted the brief.

In my final year of college, I prepared food for one of Birmingham’s top restaurants, UCBs very own Atrium, cooking refined food and working with ingredients like live Lobsters, Scallops, Foie Gras and many more exploring some of the more modern cooking techniques like sous vide while still honouring traditional French Cookery.

I was chosen to represent UCB, and the Professional Cookery course at the opening of the new college facility, McIntyre House, where I had to represent the college in front of local businesses, governors and HRH Countess of Wessex, I had the chance to promote the college to local businesses and further the connections with the college.

In June 2016 I was selected to travel to Denmark to complete a 3-week work placement. I had the pleasure of working for Pia and Klaus Bartholin at the family owned and run ‘Huset Blom’ restaurant. This is a ‘tapas’ style restaurant, where you order a variety of dishes from the menu which are then served on sharing platters at the table for diners to enjoy. This was a fantastic opportunity to see a different style of food which I had not yet experienced. I learned about different cookery techniques, vegetable preparation and also some butchery of a rib eye of beef.

I am enjoying my first year of the Culinary Arts Management course where I shall be learning what it takes to manage my own kitchen, from menu planning to costings. I look forward to this new venture in my career.
From formal presentation of fine dining through to the creativeness of bakery and patisserie, some of my work can be found on the gallery page.