Saturday 24 October 2015

The Rivergarden: The Full Service

Last weekend I returned to the kitchen at The Rivergarden in Thorpe St Andrew, Norwich. Having had a taste of the activities a week before, I was really looking forward to my evening of documenting a professional working kitchen.

Having never witnessed the happenings during a full service, can I say first of all what an amazing thing it was to watch and experience. It gave me such appreciation of the effort that goes into making good, tasty food for customers to enjoy. It will certainly make me think about how my food gets to the table in future too.

Chefs Jake Garwood and Charlie Wilson are the core of a great team during food service. They work seamlessly to create beautiful dishes, taking such care in their preparation and presentation. Watching them in detail for the first time, it is almost like they are telepathic. After working together for quite some time, they just *know* how the other does things, and it all comes together perfectly.

Each dish produced is a work of art. It was a total pleasure to watch. I also liked talking to Martyn, who kept things going by making sure all the things coming into the kitchen were cleaned again and ready to use.

I really, really enjoyed taking these photos, and I had a great time with Jake, Charlie and Martyn in the kitchen. In the restaurant the team worked tirelessly to ensure customers were satisfied with everything coming from the kitchen, and from the total lack of food scraps coming back on all the plates, the customers were indeed satisfied!