Starting off as a chalet chef, Diana climbed the rungs to founding her own specialist food ventures. This included a catering company and a refined delicatessen in Chelsea. She infamously taught at The Grange Cookery School in Somerset for seven years and has been with The Avenue for over ten years. This Mother Duck engages and educates her students with undying character and warmth.
With a knack for trailblazing twists on classical dishes, Diana simply loves food and is identified for her delectable culinary creations that will amuse and delight your palette. She does not do boring!
Having travelled extensively, this gipsy has cooked her way through the most exotic of lands – one local course at a time. She really has acquired a great knowledge of international cuisines and cultures (don’t get her started on Sai Ua – Chiang Mai sausages!).
If you have any queries about anything and everything, Sophie’s your girl.
Richard is a self-confessed Foodie, with an interest in modern cooking techniques. His flair for experimental cookery will certainly broaden your culinary horizons. Working extremely hard to share his enthusiasm with the students and push out the traditional boundaries, he is the youth and energy in the Kitchen.
After beginning his career in publishing, he decided to retrain at Westminster Catering College, which came as no surprise to his family who had taken over a small Hotel Restaurant in S.W France. He had spent many enjoyable holidays there helping in the kitchen – as well as foraging in the nearby woods for Truffles and Wild Mushrooms.
After completing his course he worked for various London Restaurants before landing his first Head Chef position at Aurora in Soho. Here he developed his style of short seasonal menus, cooking for hundreds of thousands of customers including a number of celebrities.
Now wishing to pass on all his practical experience and the odd anecdote has found the perfect “Avenue”
Having moved to London 14 years ago she worked in the city for over 10 years and then decided to pursue her passion for food. Quitting her city job she enrolled in Leith’s School of Food & Wine, where she trained for a year. Since then, Monica has worked in some of the top restaurants in the UK and now runs her own bespoke catering company – London Basque Kitchen (www.londonbasquekitchen.co.uk), showcasing the best of both Spanish and British food.
Bringing a great knowledge of food and a great spirit with it, she fits into the Avenue family well!
Believing that experimentation is one of the main skills in cooking, he stands that with the belief in art, to break the rules you need to know them first. Having a solid notion about cooking will allow you to feel more secure to cook without recipes and find your own taste. He teaches this ethos with enthusiasm and flare!
Since graduating, Fran has worked as a private chef at several locations around London.
In 2017, she started her own cake company called Up & Rise, which prides itself on delivering freshly made, bespoke cakes and desserts. Alongside these pursuits, Fran hugely enjoys teaching at The Avenue and particularly loves helping children discover the joys of cooking.
Her first job in the food industry, was with raw vegan food at Raw Imagination, where she started to learn more about the benefits of living foods and ingredients. At that time, she decided to broaden her knowledge in healthy foods and habits in the renowned Hippocrates Health Institute, in Florida USA, where she did the Life transformation program for 3 weeks.
After that, she did courses in The Wild Food Cafe, The Raw Chef, and in Macrobiotic cuisine. Last year she graduated as a Vegan Natural Chef, at the College of Naturopathic Medicine (CNM), a course that combines cooking techniques with the nutitional aspects of foods and therapeutic menu development.
She has worked as a chef in a number of different restaurants including Mildreds, The Duke of Cambridge, Tanya’s Cafe and Gujarati Rasoi but has now brought her skills and enthusiasm to The Avenue full time! We are thrilled to have her.
Becky soon realised that food reminded her of her glorious childhood growing up on a fish farm in Kent, having worked at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant her love for lobsters continues and she joins us at The Avenue with her great enthusiasm and knowledge.
As well as teaching Becky also works with food on TV, assists on the creation of books & as a private chef. We are happy to have her work with us!
She is fuelled by indefatigable energy and boundless creativity. An acclaimed artist and graphic designer Nikola is a creative genius and has joined us at The Avenue to share her undeniable cake making talent.
With 15 years of experience, spent mostly in London, he travelled and worked in a number of different environments, from luxury hotels to beach “gazebo style” bars, from Sydney to Cape Town and of course London and Milan – where he comes from.
His constant search for new flavours and techniques, and his passion for the bar industry have lead him where he is today in teaching cocktails classes and having loads of fun doing it – the perfect match for The Avenue Cookery School, Andrea ensures that extra fun stirred into the night!
His favourite drink?
“As much as I like playing with flavours and anything that’s new I find a dirty, stirred, vodka, triple olive martini hard to beat!”
Close links with the Ski Travel Industry and other Job platforms
We have close links with a number of ski companies and other seasonal and non-seasonal job platforms to help with placing you as a Chalet Host, a chef or assistant chef positions.
