My name is Zoltan, the newest member of  Hub International focusing on the culinary journey of our students and trainees. I come from a small-hold background where we kept farm animals, made fine wines and brandy as well as home made charcuterie. I was 14 years of age when I first entered a kitchen of a small elderly home in Hungary and got the buzz for cooking.Just four years later I moved to Helsinki in Finland without speaking any English or Finnish learning the language on the job as a chef.

Chef Zoltan talks passionately about produce

Not long after I turned 20 years old I moved to sunny Glasgow and started my career with the 5* Hilton Hotel Glasgow, being in charge of its fine dining restaurant, Cameron’s.

From the Hilton my journey took me to Aberfoyle where I took on my first head chef role at a Macdonald Hotel, this followed by the opportunity to open the iconic Glasgow Grand Central as senior sous chef. I spent 4.5 years at the Grand Central being promoted to Head Chef not long after the opening and then I returned in 2019 as its executive chef.

Chef Zoltan presents certificate to a Hospitality Industry Trust Scholar in 2023

In between, my journey took me to Blythswood Square Hotel, Glasgow’s top 5* hotel where I was the Executive Chef until I returned to the Grand Central.  In 2020 I was fortunate to have the opportunity to become a part of the luxury 5* Cameron House on Loch Lomond’s re-opening team as the Executive Chef for the resort where I spent two and half years.

Not long after leaving the Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond I followed my roots and went to work to Barnhill Farm in Renfrewshire. This job gave me a feel of belonging, having coming from a smallholder background. The farm shop grew from strength to strength, using our own cattle lamb and pork on the menu, baking fresh breads, pies and making ice cream in our specially designed ice cream room with milk sourced from less than 10 miles from the farm.

During this time I joined Hub international as a senior part time chef tutor and completed my PDA in teaching practises at City of Glasgow College, this has since allowed me improve my programme planning and educational experience which enabled me to join this fantastic team of passionate people in a leadership role.

Chef Zoltan steps in to Head of Culinary Education position which was previously held by Lauren Shields

During my cooking career I have had the opportunity to cook for over twenty five world leaders (two POTUS), and a number of famous singers and sports personality’s, royalties as well as actors and I use these interesting to promote the catering and hospitality that I am passionate about. 

My favourite food is spaghetti Bolognese served home made pasta or gnocchi, or good quality charcuterie meats with cheeses and home made bread along with a lovely glass of Zinfandel to accompany it!

I am keen to deliver more masterclasses and workshops for the general public too, so please do contact me if you are keen to enhance your own culinary skills!

Zoltan

Meet Michael – Head Barista Tutor

Hi! my name is Michael and I have been working in the hospitality industry for 8 and a half years now. I started my career off at a local five-star restaurant (Cameron house Hotel) with the initial aim of being part time until I went to university. My first role was being part of the bar team and being a 18 year old freshly out of school I was quite nervous about the prospect of the job as I had no prior knowledge or experience of the industry as this was my first job. It was only a matter of months working within this role before I gained a real passion for the hospitality industry, and I made the decision that this was the career that I wanted to follow. I feel I was lucky to have great co-workers and managers around me when I started which not only trained me within the role but gave me the knowledge and confidence to be able to develop my skills and grow as a person. I feel that to this day I have used the positive training experience I received as an inspiration to use my experience and train the next generation of hospitality workers. 

For the first couple of years, I learned all the basics of hospitality and worked between the restaurant floor and behind the bar. My initial passion was for drinks and I often found myself reading up on any material I could get my hands on about cocktails and general spirits. I loved the buzz of a busy restaurant and making loads of drinks whilst getting to meet a wide range of people from around the world. 

After three years in my role, I moved up to the Clubhouse Restaurant located at the Carrick within Cameron house resort to become a food and beverage supervisor. It was within this role my clear passion was found and that was training and developing people. I was fortunate enough to do a number of training courses throughout my time which included achieving the WSET level 2 award and becoming a whisky ambassador, both of which were held at Tennents Training Academy. I got to use my knowledge and skills learned from these courses not only for guests benefit by hosting wine, gin and whisky masterclasses/tastings but I got to hold regular team training sessions for my team to share what I had learned. During my time here I also got the chance to create and develop the cocktail list for the restaurant. This was always a dream of mine to do and loved creating the list from start to finish and seeing positive guest feedback from it. 

During my time as a supervisor within Cameron House I became the resort trainer

for food and beverage Assistants and I would be in charge of training any new employees that joined the company that were working front of house. My love for training people grew and this role I was given really cemented my thoughts of this is what I wanted to do moving forward in my career. The first batch of trainees I received were part of a summer resort assistant role where most of them were still in school and had little to no hospitality experience. I loved being able to impart my wisdom to them and use my experience and knowledge to help train and develop them. I found it really rewarding to see them grow into their role and watch their skill set and confidence grow after taking part in the training sessions. I received the most job satisfaction when I would see some members of the training group I had go on to gain a permanent role and become valued team members.

I then moved into an assistant manager role at Cameron house where I was lucky enough to continue be a resort trainer and my love for training people only grew and grew. 

After a total of seven and a half years at Cameron house hotel I decided I wanted a change and I moved onto become a cafe manager at St Mocha coffee shop and ice cream parlour in Balmaha. This was a totally different role for myself and a completely different working environment than what I was used to with it being more of an informal service within a coffee shop. I loved being part of the team here and was able to gain loads of experience and develop my overall management skillset. I have always loved coffee and I was able to learn all about coffee in great depth within this role including learning and taking part in the coffee roasting process. 

I am luckily enough to work in an industry that I love and I spend my spare time and days off visiting new bars/restaurants and coffee shops. My favourite thing to do on a day off is to find a new coffee shop to go to and plan a walk around it and finish up by getting a coffee and cake. I love going into different coffee shops and seeing how they all do things differently often take notes of any cool or interesting products or methods they use within their shop. 

I also love trying any new restaurants and bars that open up in around Glasgow and enjoy a good night out in a cocktail bar. 

I am absolutely delighted to join the Hub International team I can’t wait to get to get started in my role as the head barista tutor. When I first saw the job role vacancy I thought it was the dream job for myself as I would not only become a full time trainer but I would be helping young adults develop their skills and give them that base knowledge and confidence of working in the hospitality industry. The prospect of being able to tutor the children and see them move on from school and gain work and prosper within the industry fills me with excitement and I can’t wait to get started in my new role. 

”I am absolutely delighted to join the team at Hub International as Head of Culinary Education and look forward to sharing my knowledge and passion of this dynamic industry to inspire the next generation of Hospitality Superstars.”

Hi, my name is Lauren. Some of you may come to know me as Chef Lauren as we meet in the kitchen. I’ve been fortunate to be part of this growing industry for 20 years and I’ve had an absolute ball along the way. From the age of 18 I started front of house, first there was the banter from the Glasgow bar fly’s, then I packed up and took my beer pulling talents to the beaches of Thailand and my fine dining service skills to the Australian coasts. Not forgetting important wine list forming missions to Champagne, of course!

This industry has afforded me fantastic opportunities to travel, meet diverse cultures and make friends for life. After 10 years charming Glasgow’s elite in the dining room, the buzz of the kitchen started calling my name. I studied patisserie at City of Glasgow College where I was also awarded a Medallion of Excellence at the World Skills UK competition. After college, I worked as a pastry chef in such renowned restaurants as Rogano, Stravaigin and the The Balmoral Hotel.

Next, I was very fortunate to be involved with legendary chefs Albert and Michel Roux Jnr in setting up and opening their first Chez Roux restaurant in the region.

In 2016 I met with the amazing team at Tennent’s Training Academy and discovered my love for teaching and training through delivering cookery classes. My days were filled with sharing the knowledge and skills I’ve picked up along the way. Its amazing to see so many of my young trainees going on to rewarding careers in professional kitchens.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic threw a little curveball with the closures it brought but in this industry, we are resilient, we adapt and we thrive. Miss ‘Rona brought me to the doors of Sweet Jane Bakehouse, who started as a new business the very first week of lockdowns. We wouldn’t let a small thing like a global pandemic stop us from slinging sourdough though and Sweet Jane has emerged as one of Glasgow’s best Artisan bakery’s.

Seeing the skills gap growing in the industry has only reinforced my passion and desire to share what a challenging but fun and rewarding career this can be. I can’t think of a better team to be joining than Hub International who offer amazing training and development opportunities to help people realise their full potential.

I am looking forward to getting out and about to all the classrooms, workplaces & community events we are supporting, and I will hopefully see you soon in our new training kitchen at Platform, Argyle Street Arches

Lauren