Artisan, the group of independent coffee shops based in West/South West London has opened its third venue in Ealing. The 1,100 square foot location is the company’s largest venue, serving up to 40 covers as well as a take away service.
In the heart of this location is the Artisan Coffee School offering training to the coffee and hospitality industry, as well as customers wishing to perfect their home brewing skills.
Artisan’s ethos places coffee at the heart of the business, with every care taken to ensure that the dedication involved into cultivating the high quality coffee beans is consistently reflected in every cup served across all its locations.
Designed training and development
Having reviewed existing training programmes available, owners Edwin and Magda Harrison have worked together with Head of Coffee Alessandro Bonuzzi to develop their own internal training programme which was launched last year.
Bonuzzi joined the Artisan team in 2012 and is responsible for the quality served through Artisan’s locations. Originally trained as a sommelier, Alessandro won the Tatler Restaurant Awards in 2008 for Best Wine List and was responsible for running accredited training courses for over 60 employees at a time. Seeing the similarities between wine and the fast developing world of coffee, Alessandro joined Artisan – both believe barista skills need to be recognised and rewarded through designed training and development.
The aim of the new training programme was to move away from a process driven style of training on how to make good coffee, and instead move towards helping baristas develop a more intuitive approach where they truly understand the full complexities involved when trying to deliver a high quality product.
SCAE and Artisan courses
The Coffee School will provide a combination of both SCAE (Speciality Coffee Association for Europe) recognised courses as well as providing Artisan’s own devised courses to aid baristas in career progression from Becoming a Barista (Foundation Course), Barista Intermediate to the ever popular Latte Art courses. The courses will be taught by Alessandro Bonuzzi, who is also an accredited SCAE trainer, along with Artisan’s team of Senior Baristas.
Staff: biggest investment, greatest asset
Edwin Harrison, owner of Artisan says “Customers nowadays are expecting high quality coffee not only from the independents but from equally from chains, hotels and restaurants. Coffee is a complex product which needs to be fully understood in order to consistently extract the best possible flavours. Our staff is our biggest investment which in turn has become our greatest asset – we are recognised for having an energetic, enthusiastic and knowledgeable team across the company, which is down to the training each staff member undergoes. We are looking to share our experiences and training to help other companies achieve a similar goal.”
The Coffee School is separated from the rest of the shop by second hand window panes to maintain the hustle and bustle of a true coffee shop experience for trainees and customers taking part in the courses.
Setting up a coffee shop business
Constantly approached by potential new coffee shop owners for advice, Artisan have contributed to the Caffé Culture blog on their journey setting up the business as well as given talks across key industry events such as Caffé Culture and Allegra Strategies UK Coffee Leader Summit. Now Edwin and Magda will also be running courses providing advice into setting up a coffee shop business. They will run two full day courses offering a real insight into the steps and challenges of starting a coffee shop business, as well as guidance on how to grow the business to more outlets.
The third Artisan venue and coffee school will be located at 32 New Broadway, Ealing, London W5 2XA
For more information on the coffee school and its courses, please email info@artisancoffeeschool.co.uk