The School Dinner of dreams

On a sunny Wednesday evening, 150 top journalists, chefs, entrepreneurs and supporters squeezed around tiny school tables at King’s Cross Academy, and tucked into a ‘dinner of dreams’.

The School Dinner of Dreams was not a normal evening. Guests ate with children’s knives and forks, drank from beakers, and were served a remarkable menu cooked by some of the UK’s most celebrated chefs, and some true school food heroes – a selection of some of the best school chefs we know – all in the name of transforming school food.

The menu was the work of a powerhouse lineup: guest chefs Tomos Parry, Joseph Trivelli, Stevie Parle and Thomasina Miers cooking alongside schools chefs Devi Raveendranathan, Lewis Rowe, Matt Green and Shernett Mecaley (and not forgetting our very own chef trainers Andy Pycroft and Adam Bernstein). The evening was full of heart, laughter, and frankly terrific food.

But the evening was about more than great food. It was a fundraiser – and together, the room pledged over £300k to transform what children eat every day.

The stakes are high. In the UK, 2.2 million children live in food insecure homes. For many, school lunch is their only proper meal of the day. Over the course of their education, a child eats up to 7,000 meals at school – each one an opportunity to nourish them and spark a lifelong curiosity about food.

Chefs in Schools trains school kitchen teams to cook from scratch – fresh, nutritious and genuinely delicious food that children actually want to eat. We’ve now reached over 180,000 children across more than 140 schools, and we’re just getting started.

Thank you to the guest chefs, their teams and their talent, to everyone and anyone who generously gave their time and money to our cause. And a reminder that none of this would be possible without our school chefs, who work day in, day out to bring our vision to life and to improve the lives of the children they feed.

If you would like to donate to our cause click below.