Save us from the chop!

ONE of Spain’s leading cookery schools has hopefully been saved from the chop!

It comes after its most famous students, Dani Garcia and Jose Carlos Garcia, launched a campaign to save it.

The La Consula cookery school – set up two decades ago to promote excellence in Andalucian cuisine – was in danger of closing as it struggled with debts.

The school, in Churriana – which has trained up five Michelin-starred chefs and was voted among the region’s Top Five restaurants by Olive Press restaurant website Dining Secrets of Andalucia – was thrown into turmoil when its previous director Francisco Oliva recently resigned.

Furious that it was getting no help from the authorities, he spoke out insisting it was ‘being allowed to die’.

But now the Junta has come to its rescue promising to help resolve the debts it has incurred with both suppliers and the tax authorities.

After a meeting between the new director Miguel Ferrer and Patricia Alba, the head of the Junta’s education ministry, its future looks brighter.

The Junta insisted it wanted to keep the school open and is working on a package to resolve the debts with Social Security and suppliers and the unpaid wages of the workers.

Ferrer admitted that the school had been through some lean times recently and that problems with suppliers had affected the students, but that he was looking forward to the future.

Alba took the opportunity to underline the fact that the Junta remanined committed to the work of La Consula.

Nonetheless the #SalvemosLaCónsula campaign launched by double Michelin-starred Garcia has been gathering support.

La Cónsula which has over 600 applicants for its 44 places each year, was formally a celebrated private home, owned by American expats.

It became famous after its owners hosted celebrated guests including Ernest Hemingway and David Niven.