French plans for culinary university

The French government has unveiled plans to open the nation's first culinary university.

The proposed university, to open next year in Reims, has been dubbed "a sort of Harvard of taste", and will be called L'Institut des Hautes Etudes du Goût et de la Gastronomie (the Institute for Higher Studies in Taste and Gastronomy). It comes as a result of concern that has been growing steadily across the Channel that France's once impregnable command over all things gastronomical has been weakened.

"Haute cuisine has become internationalised," said junior minister Renaud Dutreil, in an interview with French newspaper Le Parisien. "One finds wine specialists and restaurateurs everywhere. In this context, France needs to impose itself more visibly as the country of reference for taste."

Christian Delteil, head chef at Bank in Aldwych, London, said: "The French have to realise that we're not number one any more. We have to catch up."

Although the courses won't be aimed simply at chefs, Jérôme Ponchelle, chef de cuisine at Wilton's in Mayfair, warned that those working in kitchens might not be keen to go back to college once they had started their professional careers. "We need to make sure catering colleges across Europe are attracting people into the industry in the first place," he said. "That's more of a problem."