Top New York Culinary Schools

The International Culinary Schools at The Art Institute of New York City
New York - New York

* Culinary/Restaurant Management
* Culinary Arts
* Pastry Arts

The Culinary Institute of America - Hyde Park
Hyde Park - New York

* Baking & Pastry Arts
* Baking & Pastry Arts Management
* Culinary Arts
* Culinary Arts Management

The French Culinary Institute - New York New York - New York

* Artisanal Bread Baking
* Art of International Bread Baking
* Breakfast Breads, Pastries, & More
* Charcuterie, Pate & More
* Chocolate Desserts

Culinary Academy of Long Island
Syosset - New York

* Commercial Cooking Diploma
* Professional Cooking Diploma
* Restaurant Management Diploma
* Baking & Pastry Arts, Coursework

Culinary Academy of New York
New York - New York

* Baking and Pastry Arts I
* Baking and Pastry Arts II
* Commercial Cooking (Evening)
* Professional Cooking
* Hotel and Restaurant Management

Wood Tobé-Coburn School
New York - New York

* Travel & Hospitality

Institute of Culinary Education
New York - New York

* 6 to 11 Month Diploma Programs in Culinary Arts, Pastry & Baking, Culinary Management
* Externships in New York City's top restaurants
* Over 23,000 students chose from 1,500 hands-on classes in a variety of international cuisines.

In Conversation: André Soltner and David Chang

The legendary French chef and current culinary star on French vs. American cuisine, absentee celebrity chefs, and why your côte de boeuf costs $150.

by Robin Raisfeld & Rob Patronite

David Chang and André Soltner (Photo: Dan Winters)

As the chef of Lutèce for 34 years, André Soltner lived through astounding changes in New York’s—and America’s—culinary culture. In fact, he was largely responsible for some of them, like the shift to fresh, high-quality ingredients and the adoption of a lighter, more modern approach to classic French technique. After hanging up his apron in 1994, he joined the faculty of the French Culinary Institute. That’s where David Chang graduated in 2000, before he opened the groundbreaking Momofuku Noodle Bar, a deceptively casual canteen that made waves with its inventive combination of Eastern and Western flavors and its repudiation of the fripperies of fine dining. Since then, Chang has expanded his fiefdom with Momofuku Ssäm Bar and Ko. One recent late-summer afternoon, the two pioneers sat down to compare notes on what it meant, and means, to be a modern cook in New York.

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New York: Is French technique still the basis of cooking and restaurant culture in New York?

André Soltner: Yes. For me, there is no question. The French technique is the result of 200 years of practice.

David Chang: No question. It’s the fundamentals. Yesterday, for instance, at Ko, we were talking about making meat sauces, about classic French technique and how we might have strayed from that and evolved from that, but it all stems from the same thing. I’m going to be much more excited about getting someone who’s spent four years working at Daniel, because I know for sure that this guy’s going to have a certain skill set. And you can apply that to a variety of other cuisines, not just French. So I always say it’s the arithmetic, it’s the fundamentals. I find that there are a lot of similarities between French and Japanese food. I think they’re two countries that have really systemized their cuisine and codified it. When I was in Japan, everyone wanted to work for Pierre Gagnaire, and they wouldn’t miss a beat.

NY: So what’s better, culinary school or training in a restaurant kitchen?

AS: I think the system now where you go to school first is very good. When we went to our apprenticeships, it was based on cheap labor. We were cheap labor.

NY: And now?

AS: Now, chefs, they go to school. The problem is, when they graduate, they think they are Paul Bocuse. On the other hand, that the chef is out of the kitchen and known by name, it’s a good thing. When I started, the maître d’ or owner had the name. Now the chefs, they’re so well known that they don’t have the time to actually cook.

NY: You still cook, don’t you, Dave?

DC: I’m trying.

AS: I tell you the truth: When I had my restaurant, and you asked me to come here, I never would have done it.

NY: You didn’t do interviews?

AS: If they came to Lutèce, if they came to my kitchen, yes. I would not go out. If they asked me to go to Chicago to do a fund-raising dinner, it was, “No.” If they asked me to come to give me a prize or whatever, I said, “Only on Sundays, when I’m not in the kitchen.” I was sort of a slave to my restaurant. And my wife too. I don’t say it was right. Today, I maybe say it was wrong. Years ago, in Paris, we had no money. But when we were more comfortable, maybe twenty years later, I said, “Simone, you know, you’ve paid your dues and everything, I buy you whatever you wish.” I was thinking to buy her a ring or a necklace or something like that. “Whatever you wish, tell me.” She looked at me and said, “Take me to a movie.” For twenty years, I hadn’t taken her to a movie. I woke up. I said, “Oh my God, what did I do to my wife?”

DC: You barely missed a service; you essentially lived above the restaurant, right?

AS: Oh, yeah.

DC: I lived across the street from Noodle Bar. I could barely stand it, because you’re there all the time, you can’t get away.

NY: What about the pressure of making public appearances and opening other restaurants?

DC: You have to. The livelihood of the restaurant is dependent upon getting the word out. There’s so much more competition. You could do an event every week and not cook at all.

AS: With us it started a little bit in the seventies. You wouldn’t believe how many people offered me a deal to open a second restaurant. A second restaurant? Are you kidding? I cannot do it. I had an offer to go to Japan. It’s the difference between a businessman and a craftsman. We weren’t businesspeople.

Source: nymag.com

Star Power Spices Up a Public TV Food Show

By ELIZABETH JENSEN

When Gwyneth Paltrow asked to join the chef Mario Batali and the food writer Mark Bittman on their planned cooking and travel show set in Spain, executives at American Public Television actually debated whether it was a good idea. In an era when publicity potential dictates many programming decisions elsewhere, public television remains wary of celebrity, despite its own well-chronicled lack of money to promote its programs.



American Public Television Mario Batali and Gwyneth Paltrow in a scene from the public television food show “Spain ... on the Road Again.”

But in the end Ms. Paltrow, the 35-year-old star of films like “Shakespeare in Love,” was admitted to the group, and the show, “Spain ... on the Road Again,” is already a game-changer for public television in terms of attention. Even Ken Burns, PBS’s biggest star, didn’t get a segment on “Oprah” for his epic World War II documentary series last year; Ms. Paltrow and Mr. Batali, however, nabbed an entire hour of exercise talk and Spanish cooking on Wednesday.

This week stations will find out whether the publicity, which included a four-page spread in People magazine, an article in Glamour and features in food and travel magazines, has paid off in viewers when the 13-week program begins at various times around the country. In New York, Channel 13 will run the hourlong episodes at 3 p.m. Sundays, grouped with its other more traditional in-kitchen cooking shows. But Channel 21, like many other stations nationwide, has confidently scheduled it right in prime time, Mondays at 10 p.m. With its breezy style and banter, Willie Nelson theme song and car-mounted cameras to catch the scenery whizzing by from a passenger point of view, Charlie Pinsky, the director and executive producer, said the show is “going after more than just the traditional PBS audience, and we think we’re going to bring new people to public television with this.”

“To have this kind of star power doing this on PBS is a first. Public television doesn’t necessarily need to be less star power-driven than other networks; it just has been,” Mr. Pinsky said. Celebrity, he added, “opens a lot of doors.”

Channels 13 and 21 already experienced that phenomenon this summer when the Police donated the final concert of their reunion tour as a fund-raiser. The stations raised $3.1 million before expenses (up from the $2.35 million first reported).

To round out the group in Spain, Mr. Pinsky invited the Spanish television actress Claudia Bassols. The four are occasionally together but often split up as they roam the country: cooking saffron-vegetable rice and partridge with the chef Adolfo Muñoz outside Toledo, touring the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao with the architect Frank Gehry, visiting manchego and cava producers and pig farms. Mr. Pinsky called it an “eating, drinking and driving show” (with one caveat: “Always have a designated driver”). It was a traditional road trip in name only; the participants took breaks to see their children and take care of business obligations.

The show is distributed by American Public Television, not PBS; many public television stations run programming from both distributors. PBS’s national high-definition network is carrying the show, at 7 p.m., Eastern time, on Saturdays.

The program was originally to feature Mr. Batali, in his first foray away from the Food Network and into public television, and Mr. Bittman, who writes the column The Minimalist for The New York Times (a sponsor of the Spain show) and has hosted public television cooking shows.

But it took a turn when, as Mr. Batali tells it, he was talking about the road trip at a dinner party. Ms. Paltrow, who had participated in a high school exchange program in Spain and speaks Spanish fluently, overheard, and asked to come along. “I thought it sounded like someone being very polite at a dinner table,” he said. But she persisted.

Initially, said Judy Barlow, the vice president of business development at American Public Television, executives wrestled with the concept. But, she said, they soon decided that given that Ms. Paltrow knows Spain and speaks the language, it was “kind of a no-brainer.” She added, “We wouldn’t have had her come along just for the sake of it.”

Some station managers were wary. “That was something that we discussed quite a bit: how much of it was going to be the celebrity factor, how much was going to be public television, in terms of the content. We really do think it has the kind of information and education and cultural learning viewers expect from public television,” Ms. Barlow said. “This is not a Food Network show by any means.”

That’s fine by Mr. Batali, who has been outspoken about changes at his longtime television home. He still appears there on “Iron Chef America.”

Food Network and public television both have “massive and incredible” audiences, Mr. Batali said, but “the Food Network isn’t so much about cooking anymore. It’s more about food as a glue in society.”

“Public television is my next move,” he said. “It’s got a great audience, it’s got a different business model than the Food Network. I can own the show and sell it elsewhere.”

Mr. Pinsky, whose Frappé Inc. owns and produces “Spain ... on the Road Again,” explained that each of the four stars had a share in the proceeds, and that overseas sales were in the works. He and Mr. Batali are also in the process of setting up a separate production company for future ventures. If the Spain program is a success, other road trips are being contemplated, the first one to Italy.

Ms. Barlow said she thought potential corporate underwriters would take note. “We certainly hope that this helps funders look at public television a little bit differently, or even just consider it,” she said.

Source: nytimes.com

Charlie Trotter to Whip up Magic at Bocuse d’Or USA ‘Culinary Olympics’

When the gold-standard Bocuse d’Or USA culinary cook-off debuts Sept. 26 and 27 at Epcot in Walt Disney World Resort, TV personality Al Roker will step on stage Sept. 27 to emcee the excitement. When the contest concludes and spatulas rest, culinary great Charlie Trotter, along with other star chefs from around the world, will host a Gala Dinner and Awards ceremony fit for the most discriminating gourmet.

The opening-weekend event of the 13th annual Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, open to park guests, promises to deliver celebrity panache, high kitchen drama and extraordinary culinary moments.

Roker, together with Dana Cowin, editor-in-chef of Food & Wine magazine, will spotlight the action for Epcot guests in the park’s World Showplace arena-like setting. There, eight two-person teams of the country’s top chefs will turn up the heat in the kitchen with the hope that their culinary creations land them a top spot representing Team USA at the Bocuse d’Or World Cuisine Contest -- commonly called the “Culinary Olympics” – in Lyon, France Jan. 27-29.

Epcot guests can attend the competition and observe the culinary wizardry. Each of the eight teams will serve up elaborate fish and beef dishes to be judged by a top-chef panel: Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, Trotter, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Georges Perrier, Michel Richard, Laurent Tourondel and former Bocuse d’Or USA competitors. Dishes will be judged on excellence in taste, presentation, technical skill and overall kitchen organization.

The competition culminates Sept. 27 with a Gala Dinner and Awards ceremony recognizing the first-, second- and third-place teams. Tickets are still available for the star-studded event featuring gourmet cuisine, live musical entertainment, dancing, a silent auction and a chance to meet and mingle with some the world’s top chefs, including the Gala Dinner Chefs, as well as contest founder Paul Bocuse, Vongerichten, and the Deans of The French Culinary Institute, Alain Sailhac and Andre Soltner. The Gala Dinner includes hors d’oeuvres, a four-course tasting menu, and a dessert reception prepared by Chefs Boulud (Daniel, New York City), Trotter (Charlie Trotter’s, Chicago), Patrick O’Connell (Inn at Little Washington, Washington, D.C.), Richard (Citronelle, Washington, D.C.), Perrier (Le Bec Fin, Philadelphia), Tourondel (BLT, New York City), Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park, New York City), David Myers (Sona, Los Angeles) and Traci des Jardins (Jardiniere, San Francisco), and will be paired with Diageo Reserve Signature Cocktails and Moët Hennessy Champagnes. The highlight of the evening will be a Dom Pérignon toast and the announcement of the Bocuse d’Or USA winning team.

The eight finalists competing for a spot on the US Team include:

●Timothy Hollingsworth, Sous Chef, French Laundry, Yountville, CA

●Chef Hung Huynh, Executive Chef, Solo, New York City

●Rogers Powell, Instructor, French Culinary Institute, New York City

●Chef John Rellah, Jr. Executive Chef, Hamilton Farm, Gladstone, NJ

●Richard Rosendale, Chef/Owner, Rosendales, Columbus, OH

●Michael Rotondo, Chef de Cuisine, Charlie Trotter’s, Chicago

●Kevin Sbraga, Culinary Di rector, Garces Restaurant Group, Philadelphia

●Percy Whatley, Executive Chef, Delaware North Parks, Yosemite, CA

The newly selected Bocuse d’Or USA team will join 24 teams from around the world at the Bocuse d’Or World Competition in Lyon, held every two years.

Reservations for the Gala Dinner and Awards event are $450 per person, plus tax including gratuity, at 407/WDW-FEST and include 2-day Epcot admission (a $150 value). Proceeds benefit Bocuse d’Or USA (a not-for-profit organization sponsoring the competitors’ training, travel and culinary education). DISNEY passholders are eligible for buy the tickets for just $325!

Throughout the six-week-long Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, Sept. 26-Nov. 9, guests can sample food and wine from around the world at international marketplaces and specialty dinners, attend seminars and wines schools and meet guest chefs. For more information, call 407-WDW-FEST or visit www.disneyworld.com/food

posted by hmcpherson at http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/features_food_blog/2008/09/charlie-trotter.html