More top names join Scottish hospitality awards’ judging panel

The widow of Andrew Fairlie and the restaurateur widely considered Scotland’s top seafood chef have joined the judging panel of the country’s most prestigious hospitality awards. New members of the Advisory Board of the Catering Scotland (CIS) Excellence Awards also include a leading hospitality educator and the managing director of last year’s winner of the Independent Hotel title. Kate Fairlie, a graduate in Business Studies with Travel and Tourism Management, met her husband Andrew while guest relations manager at Gleneagles, later joining the team at his eponymous restaurant in 2014.  She helped develop the restaurant’s famous Secret Garden, which supplies the hotel with fruits, vegetables and herbs. A CIS judge for over a decade Andrew, who died last January after a long battle with a brain tumour, was Scotland’s only double Michelin Star holder. Roy Brett, proprietor and executive chef of Ondine Restaurant in Edinburgh, trained at the Savoy before becoming Rick Stein’s head chef in Padstow, Cornwall. Moving back to Scotland as chef director for Dakota Hotels before opening Ondine in 2009, he has since forged a reputation as a champion of Scottish seafood and advocate of sustainable sourcing.  His awards include AA Restaurant of the Year, the Good Food Guide’s Scottish Restaurant of the Year and CIS Excellence Chef of the Year 2010. The managing director of Glenapp Castle in Ballantrae, south Ayrshire, Jill Chalmers, and Gordon McIntyre, Associate Head of Hospitality and Tourism at City of Glasgow College, have also accepted invitations to become members of the…

Keeping stress out of the kitchen – Hospitality industry launches mental health campaign

Scotland’s hospitality industry, recognised as having particularly serious problems with workplace stress, is combatting the issue with the country’s first award to promote the positive mental health of staff in hotels, guest houses, pubs, restaurants and catering businesses. The Catering Scotland (CIS) Excellence Awards – the leading annual competition for the hospitality, catering and tourism sectors – has launched the CIS Well-Being in Hospitality Award, a category aimed at honouring operators who recognise and address employees’ mental health problems. “The hospitality industry can be a great place to work but can also be a highly pressured environment,” said Billy Watson, Chief Executive of the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH). He added: “Recent research indicates that four in five hospitality workers found their job stressful some or most of the time, yet more than half wouldn’t make their employers aware of mental health problems. We hope this award will encourage employers to address factors that can contribute to mental health problems.” Gordon McIntyre, Associate Dean for Hospitality and Tourism at City of Glasgow College and a member of the CIS Excellence Awards Advisory Board, said problems were often made worse by having ready access to alcohol and that gambling issues can also have an adverse effect on employees’ mental health. Unlike physical injury, signs of mental health deterioration may not be obvious, and young men are particularly at risk because they are often unwilling to open up. “Unsociable hours, split shifts and constant working under pressure are some of the…