Westminster Kingsway College in central London has opened three new innovative teaching kitchens at the Victoria Centre. The new facilities:
- The Baroness Burdett-Coutts Kitchen
- The Culinary Science and Kitchen Innovation Laboratory
- The Chocolate Laboratory and The Cacao Barry Patisserie
Commitment to providing what the industry needs
Andy Wilson, Principal at Westminster Kingsway College, said:
“The opening of these specialist culinary facilities demonstrates Westminster Kingsway College’s continued commitment to providing what our partners in the Hospitality industry tell us they need. We are the first and only Further Education College or Culinary School in the UK to have specialist laboratory facilities for Culinary Science and Chocolate, with specialist lecturers in both areas. We are proud to open these facilities and immensely grateful to our industry sponsors for all of their support.”
The Baroness Burdett-Coutts Kitchen
The new Baroness Burdett-Coutts Kitchen is a state-of-the-art twelve stationed teaching kitchen featuring the latest Charvet kitchen ranges, multimedia facilities, and a separate area for lecturer and guest speaker-led demonstrations.
The bespoke kitchen is named in honour of Baroness Burdett-Coutts, a local philanthropist in London during the late nineteenth century. A lady of immense wealth and charity, Baroness Burdett-Coutts provided a two storey building on Vincent Square in Westminster which became the Westminster Technical Institute and later in 1910, established Westminster Kingsway College’s School of Hospitality.
The new Kitchen will be used by students studying the intensive International Culinary Diploma as well as the Professional chef courses and one day industry programmes. The Baroness Burdett-Coutts Kitchen is proudly supported by Vitamix and Churchill.
The Culinary Science and Kitchen Innovation Laboratory
The new Culinary Science and Kitchen Innovation Laboratory is dedicated to the training and education of culinary science and gastronomy. The exciting new facilities provide a fully equipped and uninterrupted space where Culinary Arts Foundation Degree students can carry out scientific research related to culinary processes, and will provide them with all of the equipment and resources that they need to carry out research projects relevant to their course.
The Culinary Science and Kitchen Innovation Laboratory will also be used to teach Kitchen Science to Professional Chef Diploma students, and the combination of kitchen and laboratory equipment will provide the ideal venue to allow interactive demonstrations as part of their teaching.
The Culinary Science Laboratory was funded by the College with additional support for the laboratory and kitchen equipment from sponsors including Cream Supplies, Labogene, Kitchen Aid, Control Induction and EOwater. The 8m2 Culinary Science Laboratory contains state-of-the-art scientific and innovative equipment including a rotary evaporator, an ultrasonic homogeniser, a centrifuge, an antigriddle, water baths, a sous vide oven, a chamber vacuum machine, a microscope, a dehydrator, a Pacojet and more standard laboratory equipment such as beakers and measuring cylinders.
The catalyst for the opening of the Culinary Science and Kitchen Innovation Laboratory was Westminster Kingsway College’s new Culinary Science Lecturer, Dr Rachel Edwards-Stuart Ph.D. Rachel comes to the College with an impressive background in this area and has worked with Dr Hervé This at the College du France and with Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck. Rachel is dedicated to developing and strengthening the collaboration between chefs and scientists, particularly in chef training and now teaches Science full-time to all College Degree students as well as helping to oversee scientific research in the Culinary Laboratory which she has helped to develop.
The Chocolate Laboratory and The Cacao Barry Patisserie
The Chocolate Laboratory provides a dedicated facility for the teaching of chocolate techniques. Students will be able to learn about chocolate recipe engineering and learn to use specialist equipment that separates the cocoa from the bean to create chocolate so that they can learn about the sourcing and processes in making chocolate from the raw materials through to the finished product as well as its use in recipes. The Chocolate Laboratory and The Cacao Barry Patisserie are sponsored by Cacao Barry/Barry Callebaut.
Courses at Westminster Kingsway College
Westminster Kingsway College has a number of Patisserie and Confectionery courses from beginner level right through to professional development courses for industry professionals.
To find out more about the courses at Westminster Kingsway College click here, call 0870 060 9800 or email courseinfo@westking.ac.uk