Food and Nutrition

Our Head Chef and his team

team photo

Our chef, Jose Gouveia (better known as Joseph) heads up the Harrodian catering team and has been working with us for over two decades. Before coming to Harrodian, he worked in the kitchens of some of London’s finest restaurants, specialising in French Cuisine, and as sous-chef at Le Bouchon in Battersea Rise. When he first joined Harrodian he cooked for approximately 70 children and he now supplies approximately 1,300 lunches a day (not including second-helpings!). Most of our children know him well because he serves them their food and is always visible. His daily presence means that he is in tune with our children’s needs and preferences.

At Harrodian we recognise that eating a wide and nutritionally balanced diet is important for pupils to be able to function at their best, to be energetic, productive and for their general wellbeing.

 

Our meals and suppliers

meatballs

At Harrodian we recognise that eating a wide and nutritionally balanced diet is important for pupils to be able to function at their best, to be energetic, productive and for their general wellbeing. Our meals are freshly prepared and cooked in-house by our culinary team, using high-quality, locally and responsibly-sourced ingredients where possible. Our milk is organic, eggs are free-range, cereals like pasta, rice, bread and wraps are a mix of white and wholegrain/wholemeal and all meat is organic, free range or naturally fed and supplied by Macken Brothers Butchers – a local butcher based in Chiswick. Smith and Brock Catch! provide our kitchen with responsibly sourced fish and fruit and vegetables are sourced by the New Covent Garden Market. For a full list of suppliers please see the list below with links to their websites in gold font.

Harrodian understands the need to strike the balance between offering healthy and nutritional food and meals that the children enjoy eating, with a view to making one synonymous with the other in the long term. Our goal is to educate our children to take responsibility for their own wellbeing and to make healthy food choices of their own and independently.  

 

Allergies and intolerances

Fish is on the menu at least once a week and there is always a vegetarian choice on offer, with the option to request a pork alternative, vegan or gluten-free meal if required. Harrodian is nut-free and caters for a wide-range of allergies and we do our very best to deliver a nutritious lunch provision to those children with specific food allergies and doctor certified food intolerances. The kitchen team helps our pupils to make the right choices by displaying signs that clearly label foods and their ingredients.

josef

Food preferences and full plates

Feedback about favourite meals at school and suggestions for new foods are invited by pupils, particularly via our student councils and suggestions boxes. Our teachers have lunch in the dining room every day and eat the same meals alongside our children. On occasion, parents who are class representatives and/or nutritionists have been invited into school to sample our lunches and offer expert advice. Our housekeeping team also monitors the whole school’s eating patterns to determine which meals are successful and which might need to be adapted. Many new suggestions are taken on board and positive changes made to our menus thanks to the feedback we receive and where meals are not eaten, they are removed from the menu. For example, following the advice of our Prep and Senior student councils, less favoured meals like tagines and stews have been recently taken off the menu and more protein such as tofu, lentils and chickpeas added to the vegetarian dishes.

Harrodian understands the need to strike the balance between offering healthy and nutritional food and meals that the children enjoy eating, with a view to making one synonymous with the other in the long term. Our goal is to educate our children to take responsibility for their own wellbeing and to make healthy food choices of their own and independently.  

meal prep

tomatoes

Three-week rolling menu

We constantly monitor and tweak our rolling three-weekly menu. As mentioned, feedback from our pupils, staff and parents make the finetuning of our menu an evolving process.  Each new term sees a different menu that reflects the changes of season and the best availability for locally and responsibly sourced food products.

Every lunchtime, we offer a selection of fresh high-quality food including the following:

  • a hot meat/fish and vegetarian main meal option
  • gluten-free, vegan meal options and alternatives to pork
  • vegetables
  • soup
  • baked potatoes with a choice of filling
  • wraps with a choice of filling
  • a salad bar offering tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, sweetcorn, grated carrot, beetroot, chickpeas, hard-boiled eggs and tuna amongst some of the daily staples
  • a feature salad of the day e.g. tomato, avocado and mozzarella
  • dessert
  • a yoghurt station: plain yoghurt, honey to have with fresh fruit
  • fruit bowls of cut up fruit such as apples, bananas, oranges
  • fruit of the day e.g. blueberries
  • different condiments
  • baskets of freshly baked bread on tables (mix of white/wholemeal)
  • jugs of water on tables

Please note that a simplified version of this three-week rolling menu is prepared for our Pre-Prep Orangery dining area for children in Reception to PP2. However PP3 children eat in the main dining room.  

*Some changes to this menu may occur from time to time due to seasonal availability, delivery issues, or unforeseen circumstances.

To access our three-week menu commencing Monday 20th February 2023 please click on the link below or scroll down to the bottom of the page to find it as a downloadable word document.

To view our rolling 3-week menu for the second half of the Spring Term 2024 (termly rolling menu)

dining room 2

Drinks and snacks

We also encourage healthy eating by asking pupils to bring in fruit or vegetable snacks (or other nutritious alternatives) from home for their morning break. Sugary drinks are not permitted. Bottles of water can be brought to school, kept on desks and replenished throughout the day from water stations around the site. 

Food Hygiene Rating

Our kitchen at Harrodian is accredited the top rating (a number 5) for its food hygiene rating. Please click here to see the accreditation on the Food Standards Agency website. 

food rating