Welcome to Summer | January Newsletter
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To kick off a new year, it's great to see eight of our top restaurants appear in La Liste's top 1000 restaurants of the world. La Liste is an aggregator of online comments, ratings and chat as well as written reviews in magazines. This is the new method of restaurant reviewing where the diner can rate a restaurant on Google, Facebook or other aps and this is taking over from the traditional written review by a food specialist or restaurant critic. It's power to the people and the restaurants who are savvy with PR and social media as well as satisfying the needs of their customers have a significant advantage. Congratulations to Michael Dearth and Ben Bayly as both The Grove and Baduzzi have made the list; Sid Sarawatt from Sidart, Kazuya, Cocoro, Simon and Creghan from The French Café, Michael Meredith's and Giulio Sturla and his team from Roots Restaurant in Christchurch.
NZQA COURSES CHANGES - FOCUS ON PART TIME LEARNINGWe are currently finalising some changes with NZQA for our courses and are thrilled to offer more part time qualifications in the future, which will appeal to people already working in hospitality roles. Also, those who want to study, dip their toe in the hospo water, can still keeping their day job. Already we have the Certificate in Cookery Level 3 (Foundation) as a part time course running on Monday and Tuesday evenings from May. We have currently applied for the Level 4 Cookery to have a part time option as well. The Diploma of Hospitality and Event Management will include the Certificate in Food and Beverage Level 4 and Certificate in Hospitality Level 5. Currently we have applications with NZQA to enable these courses to be studied part time as well. This works for both the employer, as they do not loose a staff member, and the student, who is able to keep earning while studying. The are still a few places left in the Certificate in Cookery Level 3 level 3 and level 4. Both start on 13 February for 18 weeks and the Level 4 continuing for a second semester on July 3 - November 3 2017. NZQA SOMMELIER PROGRAMMEThis full time programme over 12 weeks or part time over 13 weekends gives you the opportunity to gain a series of international WSET and French Wine Scholar qualifications and a comprehensive understanding of wine. Student loans and allowances available.
SHORT WINE COURSESYou can start your wine knowledge journey on Tuesday 7 March from 6.30 - 8.30pm with the Certificate in Wine and WSET Level 1. This runs over 7 Tuesday evenings. Following this you can then work through a series of other qualifications including WSET and the new French Wine Scholar. BARISTA, COCKTAILS, BARTENDING, CRUISE SHIPS & SUPERYACHTSStarts 13 February and there is still time to sign up with full time and part time options. We start with the Barista Intensive, a two week programme where you learn about classic coffee styles. The Licensed Controller Qualification (LCQ) enables you to become a duty manager and the NZSFW Certificate in Wine introduces you to how to taste and recognise the leading international grape varieties. Student loans and allowances available. Remember there are lots of employers desperate for well-trained, quality people to join their busy teams. Monday to Thursday, 9am - 2:30pm
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Rachel Wong
Rachel studied the Certificate in Professional Wine Knowledge and WSET certificates at NZSFW in 2008. Joining us from Shanghai, she was one of the first Chinese students to study this programme and has gone on to establish a reputation as a skilled wine educator in China. Rachel is currently studying the WSET Level 4 Diploma. In recent years, Rachel has worked as a consultant for the wines of Germany and just last week was awarded the accolade of Best German Wine Educator 2016. This is an outstanding achievement. Other alumni achieving hard earned results for the WSET Level 4 Diploma are Connal Findlay, Jenny Rothenburg and on of our WSET tutors, Joelle Thomson. Here is a link to Joelle's blog.
Hospitality business consultancy
With so much happening in the tourism and hospitality world, we have decided to launch a dedicated hospitality consultancy to offer support for business startups, customised training packages, LCQ, Food Safety and customer service. With a dedicated team of experienced trainers, our goal is to use the depth of knowledge built up within the team at NZSFW to go out and help businesses achieve their goals.
My holiday
With my sons, Oliver and Daniel, we headed off to Central Otago to climb the Cascade Saddle. This is the alpine pass
between the Matukituki River Valley, that leads to Mount Aspiring and the Dart Glacier that forms the Dart River and flows into the north arm of Lake Wakatipu, near Queenstown. An action packed 4 days had us climbing out of the valley floor through tangled beech tree roots, snow grass, tussock and schist to reach 1800m. This weather was perfect, but not for long, as a storm set in with torrential rain forcing multiple river crossings as we walked over the Dart Saddle and on towards Glenorchy. It was a tough but very satisfying experience.
The rest of the break, we were very happily settled with Alice and June on the farm in Pigeon Bay. For those of you who know Oliver, I delighted to share that he has now completed his Bachelor of Engineer (honours) at Auckland University and works for the Government's earthquake engineers, Tonkin and Taylor.
With best wishes,
Food Control Plans
All food businesses must register their food control plans under the Food Act 2014. This reassures customers that the food you are selling is safe and is also very good for your business’s reputation. Click here to find out more.
Business Entertaining & Team Events
Try our hands-on Kitchen Confidential where a group of up to 30 people get to prepare a 4 course menu which you then sit down and enjoy with a selection of delicious wines Kitchen Confidential The Team Cocktails another fun way of learning a few cocktail tips while socialising with your work colleagues or business clients.
