We take a trip to this fancy Nottingham College joint to see what the future of Notts' culinary scene have in store...
It’s about time that I paid a long overdue visit to Fletchers Restaurant to show my support to the students at Nottingham College - and what a talented bunch they are!
For those who don’t know, Fletchers is Nottingham’s training venue for hospitality students, which is staffed by students and supervised by industry professionals. Dubbed as a hidden gem by many due to its affordable prices, the former Adams Restaurant has trained hundreds of budding chefs, such as Nottingham’s own Hira Thakur, who was a contestant on MasterChef: The Professionals in 2020 - and who now works as Head Chef at Cleaver & Wake, a fine dining restaurant in the heart of The Island Quarter.
With regular themed evenings during term-time, we visited to try out one of the regular takeover events: The Middle Eastern Takeover Evening presented by Level 4 FdA Hospitality Business Management students.
Now, to be upfront, I wasn’t sure what to expect from dishes prepared by students. With all previous dining out experiences consisting of food being cooked by more experienced chefs, I had some reservations! However, these were unfounded as soon as we walked through the door, and we were greeted with such professionalism and spotted many happy faces around us tucking into their plates.
These rising stars will no doubt go very far, and I’m excited to see where they end up
For only £26.95 for five beautiful courses of Middle Eastern cuisine, we were treated to a mezze platter (my favourite kind of platter) for our first course with hummus, baba ghanoush, and a beetroot dip served with Lavash bread.
The second course was Turkish Baked Sea Bass with tomatoes, olives, garlic, and lemon, or a vegetarian option of Sumac Roasted Cauliflower – both were really good dishes with tons of flavour!
This was followed by Braised Lamb Shank: Dakoos sauce, honey-roasted carrots and chilli-pistachio. For the veggies, we were delighted with baked aubergine filled with akkawi cheese.
Next up was a palette cleanser of Rose Water and Lemon Sorbet before dessert: Egyptian-Style Bread Pudding served with pistachio ice-cream which was worthy of a Paul Hollywood handshake.
These rising stars will no doubt go very far, and I’m excited to see where they end up - whether that’s on the telly, working at a high-end restaurant, or in the catering biz!
@fletchersrestaurantnottm
111 Canal St, Nottingham NG1 7HB
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