Lunches in the Dining Hall

During the lunch hour hundreds of pupils head down to the Dining Hall. Some eat their packed lunches there, others buy a snack from the tuck shop, but an increasingly large number opt for the full three course lunch, costing £2.20. A wide range of choices – which may include stir-fries, traditional mince, chicken carbonara, curries, fajitas or steak pie – is supplemented by the salad bar and the pasta bar. Wednesday is fast-food day, and the most popular dish of all is almost certainly Friday’s fish and chips.

Scolarest, the specialist education division of the leading catering organisation Compass, has been providing meals at the Academy for the past 25 years and has been a leader in its field, introducing healthier balanced options with lower salt, fat and carbohydrate as appropriate. There is a strong emphasis on fresh fruit and vegetables and an increased salad content. Scolarest is conscious of the organisation’s responsibility: “We realise that encouraging children to eat a nutritional diet and to learn about healthy eating is a very important part of their education.”

Prep School pupils are certainly conscious of what they ought to be eating. “They give us healthy choices,” says Connor Hall. “My favourite is fish,” declares Jack Ballantyne, while Lewis Aitchison states with conviction that “pasta is healthy and nice.” A nearby table of girls enthuses over the tuna and sweetcorn baguettes and the pizza.

The recently refurbished dining hall provides an opportunity for boarders and day pupils to sit inside with their friends and chat. Staff too, who eat the same meals as pupils, enjoy the chance to meet with colleagues over “a good square meal”. “It’s quite unlike in the old days,” says one teacher, “no pink custard, no spam, and not a prune in sight!” The soup, fresh every day, is always popular, and portions are large enough to suit the heartiest of appetites. Vegetarians are imaginatively catered for – mushroom stroganoff perhaps or ratatouille crumble with lyonnaise potatoes – although pasta and baguettes remain as staples for vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike.

Sandy Mackie has been managing the Academy’s catering for over 14 years. Formerly with Gardner Merchant, where he oversaw major operations for Standard Life and Scottish Gas, he is justifiably proud of the service he provides and the fact that local suppliers are used. All the meat used in the dining hall is bought from the highly-esteemed Dollar butcher, Brian Devlin, and all the beef is sourced within a 20 mile radius of the Academy. This high level of quality control is hardly surprising in a school where the Chairman of Governors is one of Scotland’s most distinguished farmers and one of the country’s largest breeders of sheep and cattle.

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