Faces & Places

Bottles fly as Avon Meads' Johnny James wins TGIFriday's flairing final Bartender Johnny James from the TGI Friday's Bristol Avon Meads restaurant has successfully defended his individual "flairing" title in the chain's Bar Team Challenge.

James impressed the judges with his cocktail mixing, drink knowledge and showmanship to come top of a field of 400 contestants from across the country.

The restaurant chain, run in the UK by Whitbread, is all smiles, as it recently triumphed in the International Franchise Group of the Year award, taking first place in the competition run by US brand owner Carlson Restaurants.

TGI Friday's Bluewater restaurant in Kent was also recognised by Carlson for achieving the highest sales and the highest number of guests last year of all its franchises.

Chefs from Oliver's Fifteen pass on their expertise to GCSEstudents Things quickly hotted up early this month at the Robert Clack School in Dagenham, Kent, when chefs from Jamie Oliver's restaurant, Fifteen, dropped in to give a masterclass.

Fifteen's executive head chef Eamon Fullalove, pasta chef and original Fifteen student Ben Arthur and second-year student Keiran Inglis gave up their time to pass on their expertise.

The chefs demonstrated how to create two dishes - butternut squash risotto and puttanesca pasta sauce - to 40 GCSE catering students from nearby Gosfield Road school.

Landmark French visit Last week the five-star Landmark London hotel in Marylebone hosted a group of pupils from the Lyc‚e Rabelais college in Normandy.

The 17 students , aged between 16 and 17, visited with their tutor as part of the hotel's ongoing relationship with colleges throughout the UK and Europe.

The students were given a tour of the 2003 London Tourism Awards' Best Hotel in London and a talk from management trainee James Lea on the challenges faced by the hotel's various departments in delivering the very best service standards.