galloping gourmet

May 1st — New Staff at Wasing Park

Katie Lewis joins us at Wasing today and is straight into action as we have a run of weddings taking place on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Katie reports: "I'm really excited to join Galloping Gourmet and begin working with the team at Wasing Park. The venue is fantastic and such a great location and I can't wait to get started. I've come from an events and customer service background, working in Austria, America and more recently in Reading in the education sector coordinating events for Local Authorities and schools across the UK. I wanted to make the move towards weddings and venues so when I saw this role I knew it was the right one for me."

April 20th — Bar Manager at Rivervale Barn

We welcome Kris Jankowski as our Bar Manager at Rivervale Barn. Kris has been comprehensively trained in first class service at various posts around the world including New York, London, Cyprus and Warsaw. He joins us as we embark on a busy summer at Rivervale and looks forward to introducing, amongst many other new product lines, local draught real ale.

April 20th — Head Chef at Coltsford Mill

We welcome Mike Duckett, to the post of Head Chef at Coltsford Mill. Mike has worked for Galloping Gourmet on our casual bank for many years diligently cheffing at various places as diverse as Coltsford Mill, Staple Inn, Kew Gardens and numerous private homes and venues. He's another great example of a talented individual who have come through the ranks after years of dedicated service in our organisation and we all greatly look forward to working with him on a full time basis from this point on.
Mike's previous experience includes six years hard graft at the RAC Pall Mall before being promoted to Head Chef at the RAC Country Club in Epsom. Most recently Mike has been Executive Chef for Le Meridian, heading up banqueting at, amongst other properties, the Cafe Royal in Regent Street cooking for up to 2000 guests at a time.

April 16th — Eyjafjallajokull Volcano

Eyjafjallajokull volcano might stop the flights but it cannot and will not stop The Galloping Gourmet. With Wasing's Head Chef Joe Cathers stuck in South Carolina and other staff sleeping in bulging airports all over the world - the show must go on! With our rich stream of dedicated personnel Andy Gotting has co-ordinated and deployed our people to best effect and every one of our customers will still enjoy the top level of food they've been looking forward to, whatever nature throws at us.

April 15th — New Spit Roast Machines

New spit roast machines are being delivered to all our kitchens from today and will make a terrific difference they will make to the quality and presentation of our evening food. After a great deal of research we've invested in the right machinery to do the right job and as a result we'll now be able to provide even better hog and lamb roasts than ever before.
Andy and Chris at Curradine Barns cooked the first of our in-house hogs a couple of weeks ago, followed in quick succession by two more. They all went extremely well and both chefs were effusive about the food.
Spit roast pork with crackling and apple sauce is an extremely attractive way of providing evening wedding food and furthermore it's a great value for money option for our clients too. Andy and Chris conducted a survey of wedding costs in Worcestershire recently and discovered that our GG pricing for a spit roast is considerably less than our local competitors. So, with our brand new sparkling state of the art roasters, our superb quality, locally- sourced meat and the sheer theatre of it all we're all really looking forward to getting to work.

April 10th — New Second Chef

Michal Banaszek starts today as our Second Chef at Rivervale Barn working alongside Nick Price. Most recently working for DeVere at Highfield Park, he joins us just as we enter the full wedding season and Rivervale's inaugural full year of service.

April 2nd — New Second Chef

Our new second chef starts at Gaynes Park today, Luke Pickman: "I was born in Essex and have worked at numerous establishments throughout the county. From the age of 16 I realised I had a strong passion for food and this is enhanced by cooking with the best local fresh ingredients Essex has to offer. I support all of the local suppliers in Essex and think they produce some of the finest ingredients available. I have learnt many skills in my career, always adapting myself to cater for any customer's needs whether in banqueting venues, hotels, pubs or restaurants. I am thrilled and overjoyed to be employed by Galloping Gourmet and am particularly looking forward to making the most of my creativity and having a successful career alongside head chef Xavier Pellerin at Gaynes Park."

March 24th — Food Photo Shoot

Team Chef gather today at Wasing Park to take part in our latest Galloping Gourmet food photo shoot expertly managed by Neale James of Breathe Pictures. www.breathepictures.com Apart from greatly adding to our image bank such days give the team a great opportunity to get together swap ideas and work on innovations and improvements to our menus. See more photos...

March 15th — New Chef at The Curradine Barns

Christopher O'Neil our new chef at Curradine Barns starts work today. Christopher will be working with our Group Head Chef Andy Gotting in Shrawley continuing our record of employing the very best in local talent. His appointment will also allow Andy more time at our portfolio of kitchens driving on the food standards and inspiring our teams to pool their creative thoughts and ideas. Christopher reports "I have always lived in Worcester and therefore have worked in a range of different establishments throughout Worcestershire since becoming a chef 12 years ago. These establishments have included 3 & 4 star hotel's catering for large numbers such as The Stone Manor Hotel, to smaller fine dining restaurants including The Crown and Sandy's IN Ombersely. Whilst working at The Stone Manor Hotel I had the opportunity to enter The Midlands Chef of the Year competition where I was one of the 10 finalists out of over 100 contestants. I enjoy creating dishes using the freshest produce and support local suppliers. I am very happy to have joined Galloping Gourmet and look forward to be working alongside Andy at The Curradine Barns."

February 24th — Locally Brewed Real Ale

Our Drinks Manager, Ray Beckett, announced plans to serve locally brewed real ale on draught at all of our various bars today. After many painstaking and tough trips to various suppliers we've now selected our different beers including the discovery of a little known but wonderful pint for Gaynes Park from independent brewery 'The Gate' in Sawbridgeworth. This cottage brewery lovingly brews a limit of nine barrels per week at the back of their pub, although the market will dictate that beer this good be produced in much larger quantities very soon! Clients will need to order in advance to secure these high quality products. We believe that such excellent local beer brewed, delivered and served by local people is a product well worth savouring at each of these sites.

February 6th — ResCU Charity Dinner Dance at Gaynes Park

£16,000 raised at Gaynes Park tonight for local charity ResCU at a dinner dance. Chair of Trustees, Debbie Stephen said: "Thank you (GG) for your input into a very successful charity event at Gaynes Park. We had a great evening and the food was superb. I would also like to highly commend Angela for her help throughout the evening and through the planning stages, she was excellent support. £16,000 was raised for a very worthwhile charity which aims to build a respite care facility in Essex to support families caring for a disabled member."

February 6th — Taste Of Curradine 2010

Taste of Curradine is over for 2010. It was a fantastic event that offered everyone a chance to experience the outstanding food from the Curradine Barns, from home-cured bresaola to shellfish bisque.
Plans are already underway for Taste of Curradine 2011. Watch this space... See more photos.

February 3rd — Countryside Alliance Award

GG Managing Director Simon Robson attended the Countryside Alliance Awards at the House of Lords along with the management team of Wasing Park. Nicknamed the 'Rural Oscars,' they aim to celebrate the characters, skills, traditions and enterprise of the countryside and to recognise innovative and successful businesses from across England, Scotland and Wales.
Estate owner Joshua Dugdale said: "We believe that the future of rural estates is based around their ability to become a hub in the local community. An estate is vitally important to many people in the local area both directly and indirectly - a thriving estate means a thriving community. This is about so much more than the bottom line and in winning this award our amazing team have shown you can be a financially successful and importantly, a socially responsible business even in a recession."

January 20th — New Event Manager at Rivervale Barn

Welcome to Olivia Pratt our new Event Manager at Rivervale Barns. A couple of weeks into her time with us she reported: "I have always worked in hospitality, as a waitress throughout university for various catering companies and more recently as a Wedding Coordinator in a country hotel. I'm really enjoying working at such a beautiful venue where everyone from the venue owners, and all the GG team, Berny, Nick and Tom is passionate about producing the best possible day for the couples. In my first week, there was a Tasting Day at Rivervale which confirmed what I had hoped, that I had joined a company committed to producing excellent, well presented food."

January 8th — Our Venues in the Winter

The country might well be in turmoil due to the snow and that lack of grit, but we've got five weddings on this weekend and on they will go! In amongst all the challenges though it's worth stepping back and remembering how beautiful these venues are at this time of year. Here is a photograph taken today from Coltsford Mill in Surrey. See more pictures...

January 1st — New Year, New Initiatives

Our Central Business Support Manager is out and about at all of our venues ensuring our event and kitchen teams have everything that's required to deliver first class service to our valued clients. Teresa is also responsible for ensuring our staff are kept well up to date with a variety of key training initiatives. During 2009 she co-ordinated training and refresher courses in many areas including advanced and basic health and hygiene, licensing, SAGE, Excel planning, fire safety, first aid, hotel and hospitality planning. She will be co-ordinating some new initiatives in accordance with best practice for 2010 and is looking forward to analysing in which areas these should be in close consultation with our teams.