Catering students at Athlone Institute of Technology had a chance to put their hospitality skills to the test for a VIP guest when the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern dropped by for a visit.
Like all the most welcome guests, Mr Ahern came bearing gifts and he was not shy about showing off the €9.3 million price tag.
Mr Ahern was there to lay the foundation stone of the IT's new hotel, catering and tourism building, which is scheduled to open in September next year.
The high-tech facility will replace a scatter of buildings split between locations on and off the college campus. It will allow an additional intake of 100 students to join the 500 already enrolled in over a dozen tourism and hospitality courses at the institute.
The existing buildings have been in use since the early 1970s - in culinary terms, the days when coleslaw was considered exotic - and they are not only outdated but, says department head Mr John O'Hara, very overcrowded.
Apart from the obvious kitchens and food storage and preparation areas, the new building will house a restaurant and bar which, following tradition, will be open to the public so that students learn their trade in a real-life setting.
They will also have the benefit of a wine laboratory and - prepare for a mouthful - a food sensory evaluation unit where students will learn how well-prepared food should taste, smell and look.
"We look at food under different light - soft, harsh, and so on," Mr O'Hara explains.
Lecture rooms, a demonstration theatre, computer training and a language laboratory will make life easier for the students and the department's 30 staff.
Mr O'Hara says that despite the drawback of unsocial hours and a sometimes hectic schedule, the catering industry is still very attractive to students.
"We offer a very broad training. There are craft skills, business skills, IT and social skills. They are all very mobile skills, so it's a great job for travelling."
He speaks from experience, having begun his career as a waiter before training as a chef and in hotel management and then switching to a lecturing post in London before moving to Amsterdam and the Caribbean idyll of St Lucia and finally returning to lecture in the Dublin Institute of Technology and at Athlone.
The jobs market remains buoyant, which is also an attraction. Students can reach the height of the profession without scaling the top of the points system, which is another appetising prospect.
"It is very flexible. An apprentice chef with low entry points can build up qualifications, graduate with a degree and go on to do a master's in Dublin, so you can bypass the points system to a certain extent."