Looking for somewhere different for a Christmas lunch that offers fabulous food and great value? Try the county's colleges in Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds where talented students of the culinary arts are ready to take your orders
Christmas, a time to gather friends and family and mark the season, maybe splash out and eat out. Temptations abound, with hospitality in all its beautiful Suffolk forms sparkling with goodwill and good things.
The restaurants at the county’s colleges – Edmunds at the Culinary Arts Academy at West Suffolk College, Bury St Edmunds, and Chefs’ Whites at the Suffolk Centre for Culinary Arts at Suffolk New College, Ipswich – are no exception. Expect glitter and glamour, fairy-lit fantasy-lands, cooking and service that shine like the brightest stars, and menus that won’t break the bank.
They’re not just for the festive season, of course. Both restaurants offer cracking value lunch and dinner every week of term, host sell-out guest-chef and theme nights, and of course guide the next generation of hospitality professionals on every step of their journey. They are Christmas stars.
Chefs’ Whites
“I’m excited the C-word has gone,” says Mike Mulvihill, director of service industries at Suffolk New. C-word? ‘Covid’, he means, not ‘Christmas’ which, even at an October gathering to mark the launch of the autumn menu at Chefs’ Whites (and reveal the restaurant’s sparkling makeover) was on the team’s lips.
The 100 students who run Chefs’ Whites restaurant with the supervision of lecturers are preparing to deliver full Christmas menus and spot-on service Wednesday and Thursday evenings and Tuesday-Friday lunchtimes for up to 60 guests at a time. “We’ll be doing 300-400 covers a week,” says chef lecturer Dan Russell-Poole. “And for the Level 1 and 2 students, it’ll be the first time they experience such busy services.” Are they ready? “I’m confident. Watching their progress recently has been so rewarding. I watch mini-epiphanies happen every day.”
Turkey orders are being placed when we speak, so too beef shin which will be braised low and slow and served with goose-fat potatoes and veg, and duck to be served as a roast breast and leg ballotine with confit carrots, black pudding and Tenderstem broccoli. Wild mushroom polenta with garlic, parsley and a festive dose of truffle is offered for non-meat eaters. The biggest challenge? “Scallops!” Dan says without hesitation. They’ll be seared to order and served with agretti, artichoke purée and a sprinkling of their dehydrated and blitzed coral. It’s bound to be a favourite.
Alongside Christmas pudding will be ever-popular chocolate fondant with mint sorbet, and sour cherry vacherin. “My favourite,” says Dan whose pastry skills were honed at The Ritz. “That gooey meringue and beautiful sour cherry…”
It will be a blinder, if it’s anything like the October meal. Students were a scant few weeks into the academic year when a capacity restaurant was served zesty little tacos with avocado, lime and chilli, warm breads and whipped butters, squash-filled agnolotti in a clear onion consommé, and magnificently soft turbot with a caviar sauce that was beautifully sharp against the butter sauce. Lamb wellington used meat from sister college, Suffolk Rural, and was served with a savoury lamb faggot, glorious lamb-fat potatoes and spiced carrots. They nailed that main course with all its potential pitfalls. “The wellington was the dish I was most nervous about,” says Dan. “Our Level 3s learnt butchery with Chris [Martin, chef lecturer] and used all the animal including the bones for the sauce. They really got stuck in.”
Suffolk New is fortunate to have Suffolk Rural with its livestock, fields and polytunnels in the college fold. Hospitality students spend time at the Otley campus learning the cycle of food production, then preparing and cooking produce back in the kitchens. But why shouldn’t a farm-to-fork approach be as important to Chefs’ Whites as it is to any other restaurant? “We are a restaurant in Ipswich like any other, so of course provenance of ingredients is important,” says Mike. He doesn’t quite thump the table, but there’s definitely a thumping tone in his voice. “Chefs’ Whites is about getting people ready for work life, ready for a career in hospitality. It’s not about sending them off with a certificate and a set of knives.”
Chefs’ Whites, Suffolk New College, 1 Rope Walk, Ipswich IP4 1LT. For events, menus and bookings, go to suffolk.ac.uk. Instagram @chefswhitesipswich.
From the Christmas menu
Seared scallops, agretti, artichoke purée
Roasted butternut squash & tarragon soup
Roast loin of cod, shellfish risotto, sea herbs
Braised short rib of beef, Yorkshire pudding, goose-fat potatoes, dripping carrots, piccolo parsnips
Chocolate fondant, mint sorbet, chocolate tuile
Sour cherry vacherin meringue
… plus turkey and all the trimmings.
Christmas lunch (£17/£20 for two/three courses) and dinner (£28 for three courses) is served on select dates from Tuesday November 22.
Edmunds
On the last day of term, when the last Christmas dinner guests have left and the kitchens have been cleaned down, students and staff at Edmunds Restaurant will kick back and relax. Tips earned will have gone towards Secret Santa gifts, and there’ll be awards and applause in recognition of jobs well done by some 70 chef and front of house students. Guided by their lecturers, Level 1, 2 and 3 students will have served some 80 customers at lunch, and another 80 on Wednesday and Thursday evenings for a full-on fortnight of Christmas services.
This is a restaurant with an AA College Rosette and ‘Highly Commended’ to its name – the highest accolade possible – and it’s clear why. An autumn lunch warms fully as the first hail of the season batters on the windows. Lentil curry is fragrant with coconut and turmeric-roasted cauliflower, and comes with rice and a blistered flatbread which curves eccentrically over the plate. Seared mackerel is prettily plated with sweet salt-baked beetroot, and chunky gribiche with all its fat-balancing pickliness. There’s a hearty pork ribeye with caramelised endive on the menu, or you could just come for soup and a toastie, or a bagel (made in-house, as are the warm, bouncy milk bread mini-loaves) filled with classic salt beef and pickles.
Maybe finish with a throw-back trifle with seasonal layers of plum jelly, almond custard, and parkin crumb, or a vast, generously iced red velvet muffin. The Edmunds Express menu is a something-for-everyone one, with every dish also suitable for takeaway, thanks to its Covid-era inspiration.
Lunch has been prepared this November day by Level 1 students and delivered by their front of house counterparts, both teams just weeks into their hospitality studies. It’s impressive: Calum White is learning the ropes as a waiter under the guidance of lecturer Julie Flatman; Tom Holmes emerges from the kitchen and talks with a confidence that’s beyond his experience. Chef-lecturer Rob Reynolds is nurturing his potential, and Tom already has a part-time job at 1921 Angel Hill restaurant in Bury St Edmunds.
In a flash, gentle autumn will become busy Christmas. The restaurant will sparkle with the season, and guests will fill the dining room with energy and expectation. Yes, there’ll be turkey and trimmings, but look out for coley with king oyster mushroom, deep-fried cockles and a shellfish and tarragon beurre blanc, or puffy wild mushroom vol au vents with truffled goats’ cheese. Finish with local cheeses, or a clementine posset with the warming winter flavours of cranberry, ginger and cinnamon. The mince pies served with coffee might well be to take home for later.
“We’re busier than we’ve ever been,” says Matt Goulding, head of culinary arts. “And at Christmas you see the students come on in leaps and bounds. They’re doing a service every day. It’s real. At first they’re nervous, then you see them getting into it, hands-on, stretched.” Rob, now in his sixth year of teaching, agrees. “Christmas is when they really practise their skills. It’s all about attention to detail. They’ve got to fill every dariole mould to exactly the same level for the salmon mousse, the breads all have to be glazed just right, or they can’t go out.”
It's obvious, really, because Edmunds is a restaurant like any other in Bury St Edmunds. “Our reputation is growing,” says operations manager Claire Waterson. “Dinners sell out, regulars come back time and again because it’s consistent and great value.” She looks beyond the college too, keen to encourage future students, and embed the college deeply in the town’s community: winners of the Choose Hospitality Junior Chef competition are finishing their eight-week cookery course, and a collaboration with Bury St Edmunds Rickshaw sees heat-at-home meals, created by students, delivered to vulnerable local people.
Edmunds Restaurant, West Suffolk College, Out Risbygate, Bury St Edmunds IP33 3RL. For events, menus and bookings, go to edmunds.wsc.ac.uk. Instagram @edmundsrestaurant.
From the Christmas menu
Spiced parsnip soup, potato crisp, toasted almonds, curry oil
Duck salad: crisp leg, smoked breast, charred plums, pickled carrot, orange & thyme dressing
Braised beef shin, caramelised celeriac & apple purée, roasted silverskin onions, crisp shallots, port jus
Wild mushroom vol au vent, roasted squash, truffled goats’ cheese, buttered kale
Clementine posset, cranberry compote, stem ginger, cinnamon tuile
Dark chocolate palet d’or, aerated white chocolate, mint
… plus turkey and all the trimmings.
Christmas lunch and dinner (£25/£28 for three courses) is served on select dates from Tuesday November 29.
