Yet again it is Friday, and that can only mean one thing… welcome to this week’s Weekly Shenanigans!

Our action-packed week started with an Avenue trip to Barnes Food Fair. We spent the day chatting about all of the wonderful courses that we provide and how we offer a little of something for everyone. We at the Avenue believe that food is the way to the heart, so to really emphasise that we know what we are talking about, we brought our famous (and utterly delicious) Avenue chocolate brownies. Bribing you with irresistible chocolate brownies might seem unfair, but you know what they say, all is fair in love and war… and food.

While a few of us were away tempting Barnes with brownies, the kitchen became a temporary hen house. Harri, the bride-to-be, brought 15 of her besties to The Avenue for a hen night to remember. The girls rustled up an incredible meal that would be worthy of MasterChef (seriously, we have watched MasterChef and their food doesn’t look as good as ours!). Once the proverbial chef hats had been removed, the hens tucked into a delicious starter of Thai Beef Carpaccio, followed by a mouth-watering Thai Red Chicken Curry with Lemon and Saffron Rice and all finished off with a zingy Lime and Coconut Cheesecake. To top it all off, in true hen party style, there was unlimited booze throughout!

On Sunday, we held another one of our popular Kids Weekend classes. As we know that kids love to get stuck in, we made one the most hands-on dishes in our repertoire… sushi! We are committed to teaching the youth of today, that there is so more to food than pizza and cake – one sushi roll at a time!

Monday saw the restart of many of our favourite courses including the first week of the renowned and intensive Chalet Host, Basic to Brilliant and D of E Gold award courses. Monday also saw the start of the immensely popular Off to Uni course, just in time for fresher’s week. Our students can walk away with pride, knowing that they will no longer have to live off Pot Noodles for 3 years!

Now that the schools have gone back, and parents around the country are putting their feet up after a long (and mostly wet) summer, we are offering Kids After School classes. On Monday, we gave parents a few extra hours respite and a home cooked supper made by their very own children (aren’t we kind!). This week we focussed on our delicious, yet simple, Stir Fried Rice.

On Wednesday, we had another very successful Avenue road trip (for most of us) to a corporate event for Square Meal, the ultimate guide to eating out in London. Richard was asked to conduct a demo at this event for vegetarian sushi, showing that sushi isn’t just for fish lovers. Sophie and Emma also took the opportunity to talk about how flexible we can be for private corporate events, here at the Avenue. We don’t want to brag that we will bend over backwards, but… we can accommodate pretty much everything, depending on what budget is available. We can cater anything from one course pasta making to full on dinner parties. If you fancy personalised hampers and bottomless booze, we have you covered! The team made sure they did some serious market research, sampling all the street food available and seeing what the other exhibitors had to offer…like this crazy GIF of Sophie, Richard and Emma that we think will probably be going viral any day now.

 

On Thursday evening, following a spot of wine tasting, it was the eagerly anticipated (and famous!) dinner party, lovingly hosted by the students of our week-long cookery course. 40 friends and family members of our students joined us for an incredibly entertaining evening to celebrate the achievements of our budding chefs. This is the ideal opportunity for our pupils to gain a taste of how much fun hosting and showcasing their newly found culinary skills can be!

That concludes our shenanigans for this week, please feel free to come back next week for more Avenue adventures!

P.s. If you can’t wait to find out what we have in store for next week, we have a sneak peak, just for you (as we feel like we’re now firm friends).

On Sunday, we will be hosting our immensely popular Sunday Brunch Club, currently running with 25% OFF!! Would it even be Sunday without brunch? We have no idea as we love our brunches (especially on a Sunday). Following this, in true Great British Bake Off fashion we will be holding a Ready Steady Bake class to release your inner Prue Leith, Paul Hollywood or Mary Berry. All we can say to that, until next week, is… ready steady baaake!