From shui to chef in one week

For top mountaineers, it might be the north ridge of K2; for whitewater rafters, it is the Zambezi. But for those who want to find out whether they have what it takes in the Italian cuisine stakes, who reckon they know their polenta from their bruschetta, a week as a chef in the kitchens of the River Cafe in Hammersmith has to be the ultimate testing ground - as the winner of our River Cafe competition, Bridget Herbert, thirtysomething mother of two, and sometime feng-shui consultant, discovered last week.

After her winning seasonal menu of wild mushrooms with pecorino, wood-roasted pork with fresh figs and spiced pear granita with chocolate polenta biscuit was chosen by the proprietors, Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray, she was invited in to see whether she could hack it for a week in the kitchens that have produced, among others, Jamie Oliver.

"At first I couldn't believe that I had won, and then I thought, 'Bloody hell!' It was a pretty scary prospect."

And Bridget is no shrinking violet. Eagle-eyed readers may recognise her from a recent Standard story concerning a charity calendar for the RFU in which a scrumful of Twickenham ladies were shown frolicking at the home of rugby in the altogether. "It was the warmest October day on record, thank goodness. Sadly, although I was in the paper, I didn't make it to the actual calendar - I struck a yoga pose in the middle of the pitch, but the photographer had not got the posts in, so they didn't use it."

So which was more nerve-racking, taking her clothes off or putting on the distinctive check trousers of the River Cafe brigade. No contest: "I thought it was all going to be really hard; they would be saying, 'What's this stupid woman doing in here', and I would be sworn at." Happily, it was chez Ruth and Rose, not Gordon Ramsay.

"Everyone has been really sweet," she says. "It's a fantastic place, incredibly lively, buzzy and busy, but the atmosphere is so helpful - I have done a bit of everything. Someone was always saying: come here and look at this, showing a new technique, explaining about an ingredient."

The day started at 9.30, shadowing the head chef as he checked the day's produce - "scallops the size of golf balls, and rare vegetables that they are famous for, like cima di rapa and trevise. The difficult thing has been going to Tesco on the way home afterwards. You just don't want to buy anything."

Then there was the preparation of the tools of the trade - "They have these sharpening stones: they pour olive oil on them and rub their knives across. Absolutely brilliant" - before preparing whole trays of veg or fish. "Nothing is boring when the food is this good, and everyone was so nice, I soon got over the fact that I was being asked to do it for paying customers."

Some things are strictly for the professional kitchen, such as vast pans of constantly boiling water for cooking batches of fresh pasta to order, but other things would sit quite nicely back home in Twickenham. "I must get some tongs - they do everything with them, really useful. And pans are allmetal, so you can put things in the oven to finish off without melting any plastic."

In fact, she was by no means overawed by professional chefery. "There is nothing too complicated about what they are doing - though they are incredibly fast, of course. But there are clever techniques: like cooking things in a skillet before putting them in the wood oven, so they cook in a really dry heat and don't steam. You just have to be a bit of a perfectionist."