Catering student Hardy Baltazar is celebrating success after a work placement resulted in a job offer.

Now the 18-year-old is able to get real hands-on trade experience alongside his studies at the college.

With ambitions to one day own his own restaurant, the 18-year-old from Ingleby Barwick said: “It was my grandma that got me interested in cooking, she started teaching me how to cook when I was about ten.”

Finding that he enjoyed the time spent in the kitchen, when it came to choosing a college course the former Conyers School student says Catering at Stockton Riverside College was an easy choice.

“I like it because you get to learn in a real kitchen environment working in the student bistro,” he said.

He believes being comfortable in a commercial kitchen helped him impress bosses during a work placement.

Happy to put the effort in Hardy now works part-time around his college studies helping to prepare starters and desserts working at a golf course bistro.

To find out more about the fantastic range of catering, professional cookery and hospitality courses available at Stockton Riverside College visit: https://www.stockton.ac.uk/courses/catering/