If you want a seat at the Gourmet Room’s table, you’re gonna need a reservation.
This fine-dining restaurant at Hillsborough Community College’s Dale Mabry campus functions as an interactive laboratory for the Hospitality Management Program’s dietetic technician and culinary, hospitality and restaurant management students. Its three hourlong services cater during the week to HCC faculty, students and the public.
A $7 prix fixe lineup, highlighting starter, entree and dessert, is featured at the cash-only dining find. The menu changes weekly, and each semester has an overarching theme; for fall 2015, regional cuisine is the focus.
French, Greek and Chinese dishes have be showcased so far, with German, Latin and Indian planned for the coming weeks.
“We have fun with the menu,” Program Manager Fred Jaeger says. “We want to keep it different.”
The rotation also has another purpose: learning. Students in the kitchen need to become knowledgeable about certain skills — plating, cooking methods and portion size among them. Switching up the bill of fare helps them become familiar with numerous proteins, soups and more.
According to hospitality management instructor Steve Gagnon, students at the front of house are assigned different “stations” every time they work the Room, which features white tablecloths, local artwork on the walls, atmospheric tunes and seating for 25. They could end up as a host or barista one day, and a server the next.
“It’s kind of like a survival course,” Jaeger says.
Another cool component of the Room? It’s very collaborative, and everything’s made in-house.
Before CL visited the restaurant last week for the Wednesday lunch service, a Monday baking class had created the menu’s honey ice cream, while another class executed a ton of prep on Tuesday. As Jaeger mentioned, it takes a village, and the collaboration allows students to work in teams, as they will in the industry.
“We try to incorporate other classes as much as we can,” Gagnon says.
The quaint restaurant is sometimes used as a venue for special events in the evenings. Other groups, including the Tampa Dietetic Association, which Gagnon is a part of, organize their annual meetings there.
The Gourmet Room's last service of the fall semester takes place Nov. 5. Service picks back up for the spring semester in February 2016.
The Gourmet Room, HCC Dale Mabry, 4001 W. Tampa Bay Blvd., Humanities Building, Rm. DHUM118. Lunch is served at noon Wednesdays and Thursdays; dinner at 7 p.m. Thursdays.
This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2015.