Yesterday, student and tutor representatives from 10 of our accredited hospitality colleges came together at The Belfry Hotel & Resort for the AA College Restaurant of the Year Award 2026 judging day.

Our distinguished panel of industry leaders were truly impressed by the creativity, insight, professionalism, and passion on display throughout the day. This year’s panel comprised:

• Simon Numphud – Managing Director, AA Media
• Oonagh Taylor – Technical Consultant, The Workforce Development Trust
• Sean Wheeler – Chair, College Accreditation Panel, People 1st International
• Jacques Hobson – Director of Food & Beverage, The Belfry Hotel & Resort

While culinary and service excellence remain fundamental, these are already assessed through the People 1st Accreditation Scheme and AA College Rosette programme. The competition is designed to go beyond these foundations, recognising that exceptional hospitality requires creativity, planning, leadership, commercial awareness, community engagement, and the ability to create meaningful experiences.

This year’s presentation task challenged colleges to demonstrate exactly those qualities in practice, showcasing how students apply their skills beyond the restaurant environment.

Understanding the brief

This year’s challenge required students to plan, market, and deliver a charity event in support of Hospitality Action before presenting their work to the judges.

Presentations demonstrated how students researched the charity, developed their event concept, created menus and accompanying drinks, planned entertainment or special guests where appropriate, and reflected on the outcomes of their event.

Successful teams demonstrated not only what they did, but why they did it – showing clear links between their decisions, their objectives, and the intended impact.

Planning and organisation

Behind every successful event is careful planning. Judges were interested in how students approached the project, managed resources, allocated responsibilities, and overcame challenges throughout the process.

The ability to think strategically, organise effectively, and work collaboratively is a vital skill within hospitality, and one that this task was specifically designed to showcase.

Creativity and innovation

Hospitality thrives on creativity. From event concepts and menu development to marketing activity and guest experiences, judges were looking for evidence of original thinking and a clear rationale behind the decisions made throughout the project.

The strongest presentations demonstrated how creativity had been used purposefully to engage guests, support the event objectives, and create a memorable experience.

Commercial and operational awareness

Successful hospitality professionals must balance creativity with practicality. Judges were looking for evidence that students had considered the operational realities of delivering an event, from planning and promotion through to execution and customer experience.

Standout presentations showed an understanding of event management, customer engagement, teamwork, budgeting considerations, and the practical challenges involved in running a successful hospitality event.

Social impact

A key element of this year’s challenge was understanding the wider role hospitality can play in supporting the people who make the industry what it is.

Students were tasked with planning and delivering a charity event in support of Hospitality Action, the hospitality industry’s dedicated charity. Since 1837, Hospitality Action has been supporting hospitality people facing hardship, crisis, and uncertainty, providing financial, practical, and emotional assistance to those who need it most.

Today, the charity continues to offer vital support through grants, counselling, wellbeing services, advice, and emergency assistance, helping hospitality professionals and their families navigate some of life’s most difficult challenges. Its work spans physical and mental wellbeing, financial support, and crisis intervention, ensuring hospitality people have somewhere to turn when they need help most.

Judges were therefore looking beyond fundraising totals alone. They were interested in how effectively students engaged with the charity’s purpose, raised awareness of its work, and demonstrated an understanding of the importance of supporting people throughout their hospitality careers.

In many ways, this aspect of the challenge reflects one of the industry’s greatest strengths: its ability to bring people together, create positive experiences, and make a meaningful difference to the communities and individuals it serves.

Reflection and learning

Perhaps most importantly, the panel wanted to understand what students learned from the experience.

The presentation brief specifically asked teams to reflect on their event, providing an opportunity to demonstrate honest evaluation, recognise successes, and identify areas for future improvement.

Hospitality is an industry built on continuous learning and development, and the ability to reflect, adapt, and improve is one of the most valuable skills students can develop.

More than a competition

The AA College Restaurant of the Year Award is ultimately about recognising excellence in hospitality education.

As explored in our recent blog on what makes an award-winning college restaurant, the strongest hospitality environments develop far more than technical skills. Judging day provided an opportunity for students to demonstrate those wider qualities in action, from leadership and teamwork to creativity, professionalism, and commercial awareness.

Congratulations to this year’s competitors

Together with the AA Hotel & Hospitality Services, we would like to congratulate all colleges who took part in this year’s competition and thank them for their continued commitment to excellence in hospitality education.

The creativity, professionalism, passion, and dedication demonstrated throughout judging day made for an inspiring showcase of hospitality talent and reflected the exceptional standards being achieved across our accredited college network.

We wish all participating colleges the very best of luck as we await the judges’ final decision and look forward to announcing this year’s three finalists.

This year’s competitors were:

• The Brasserie, Milton Keynes College Group
• The Classroom, Cardiff & Vale College
• The Park Restaurant, Cambridge Regional College
• Bilocca Restaurant, Hull College
• The Copper Pot, New College Durham
• @thirty-four, Exeter College
• The Cookery, York College
• Riverside Restaurant, Newcastle & Stafford Colleges Group
• Senara Restaurant, Truro & Penwith College
• The Restaurant at BCoT, Basingstoke College of Technology