Bradford restaurants are being forced to turn hungry customers away because of a desperate shortage of catering staff.

The lack of qualified chefs and waiting staff has become so acute that one recently opened restaurant has been forced to run at half capacity.

And today Leighton Anderson, course tutor for hospitality and catering at Bradford College, said the problem was an issue across the district.

"Anyone who comes on a course here is absolutely guaranteed a job at the end of it," he said. "There is such a shortage both in food service and in the kitchen."

Mr Anderson said the opportunities available for careers in catering were being ignored by schools, which focused on sending students into higher and further education rather than vocational qualifications.

"If I am a head chef then what I want is someone with an NVQ, not GCSEs," he said. "There is also a problem with the way catering is taught at schools. They might only cook five times a year and that turns youngsters off."

He added: "The way youngsters are taught is all based on coursework and they study 'food technology' rather than cookery. It is crazy because they should be able to enjoy cooking at school."

Mr Anderson said he had started to run after-school clubs in catering for pupils, to try to stoke up awareness.

He said the number of students on his courses was growing and he believed the message was beginning to get through.

"These are skilled jobs that can lead to good careers," he said. "Places such as Shipley are growing in to very good eating areas and if young people were receiving the right kind of information they could be getting good jobs there."

David Heap, owner of the recently opened Old Tramshed restaurant in Saltaire, said he had been forced to turn away about half of all requests for bookings because he could not recruit kitchen and experienced waiting staff.

At least 30 customers were being turned away every night, he said.

"We haven't had a day since we opened that we haven't turned people away and it's obviously bad for business," said Mr Heap.

"We just haven't had applications at the level we expected, particularly for chef de parties. I had heard people mention that staff recruitment was an issue, but it has still come as a surprise." Mr Heap added: "The restaurant has been unbelievably successful, but in order to keep the quality of the food high, we have been forced to limit the number of people we can serve."

Simon Dunn, who also runs a catering business in Bradford, said the industry still suffered from an unglamorous reputation.

"Every restaurant in Bradford seems to be faced with these problems," he said. "It is because the job involves long and unsociable hours and can be not very well rewarded. The higher up you get, the rewards can be very, very good but you have got to work hard.

"Unfortunately, it is not seen as a very professional career in this country and schools do not take catering very seriously."