Constance Ephelia launches chefs academy |09 October 2015

Seventeen students from the Seychelles Tourism Academy are the first to be enrolled on the newly launched Constance Ephelia chefs academy training.

The students are following apprenticeship programmes at the Seychelles Tourism Academy (STA) and the one-year training which  started on September 28 aims to develop their culinary talents and promote the art within the local tourism industry while at the same time promote Constance Hotels as a culinary training reference in Seychelles.

A ceremony to officially launch the academy was held on Wednesday at Constance Ephelia Resort, Port Launay and this was in the presence of Tourism and Culture Minister Alain St Ange, STA principal Flavien Joubert, STA patron Claude Narain, lecturers, chefs from the Constance Ephelia, students and other distinguished guests.

The academy is the brainchild of chef Nicolas Baube who has been working on this project for the past few months. The programme being taught to future chefs is unique to Ephelia and the aim is to introduce them to modern cuisine techniques to help them develop their skills and go further in this field.

“It’s been a few months since we have been working to create here at the Constance Ephelia, a chefs academy. This culinary academy has a goal to provide additional training to what is being offered at the STA. This training will enable our apprentices to access a full modern kitchen line with current demands for hotel standards,” chef Baube said.

“Our mission is to help all future talents, share our knowledge with all the students who are passionate by the art in the kitchen. We want to make what seems impossible possible for them tomorrow. The way we used to cook in the past has changed a lot, we have new techniques that the students will be able to learn in their one-year training,” chef Baube added.

Mr Narain expressed STA’s appreciation and gratitude that such a project has become a reality, noting that the culinary academy is an additional training that will provide the students with more and improved new techniques.

“The culinary academy at the hotel is a supplementary exercise that will provide the students with more and improved new techniques. We all need training, without which there will be no progress,” he stressed.

The students will be trained by top chefs at the Constance Ephelia Resort and among them  executive chef Baube himself, chef Nicholas Heaviside who is an assistant to the executive chef, chef Benjamin Painset a chef de cuisine who specialises in fine dining, chef Joel Constance and chef Reetesh who are both chef de cuisine.

U-Roy Jules