TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/050889/05088900.063

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.5 KB | 106 lines

                                                                                FOOD, Page 99

The Cooks Who Can't Be Fired


Restaurants of culinary schools move to the head of the class


    Few people are brave enough to risk a $3 haircut at the
local barber college, and fewer still will opt for cut-rate
root-canal work done by a student at a dental-school clinic. But
a growing cadre of frugal gourmets from Montpelier to San
Francisco is finding that meals in culinary-school restaurants
can be very tasty deals indeed. A senior's sauce may need a
soupcon of salt, or a nervous freshman waiter may tip over your
water goblet, but for the most part, cooking-school eateries
provide an interesting ambience and fine cuisine at half the
price of the four-star restaurant just up the street.

    At many of America's culinary colleges, where students pay
as much as $19,000 for intense two-year courses, working in
school-owned restaurants is required for graduation. Students
may be taught everything from the psychology of hiring waiters
to how to fold napkins or operate credit-card machines. But any
would-be chef faces the final test preparing and serving food.
The New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vt., has set
up one of its restaurants, Tubbs, in a remodeled jail. Says
co-founder John Dranow: "We've been influenced by the
medical-school model. Students learn better by doing than by
watching."

    Such experiences also let students -- most of whom will be
deluged with job offers from hotel chains and private
restaurants upon graduation -- find out if they can stand the
heat of the kitchen. Says Hy Eisenberg, manager of Audrey's, the
Seekonk, Mass., eatery run by Johnson & Wales College, whose
campus is in nearby Providence: "We try to make it like the real
world, but of course the students can't get fired."

    At most school restaurants the menus are elaborate, and
many are classically French. The selections at the California
Culinary Academy in San Francisco reflect the curriculum. "Some
things are sauteed, some poached, some braised," says
Jean-Michel Jeudy, vice president for food and beverage. "We do
not teach different recipes but different techniques." The
accent is equally Gallic at L'Ecole, the aptly named restaurant
of the French Culinary Institute in New York City's SoHo
district. A recent $18 prix fixe lunch began with a light
Roquefort souffle, which was followed by a moist salmon fillet
in chervil sauce, a delicate lamb ragout and a green salad, and
ended with a textbook-perfect creme brulee.

    On the 83-acre Hyde Park, N.Y., campus of the Culinary
Institute of America, known in food circles as "the other
C.I.A.," the school runs four different restaurants. The 1,850
students learn regional U.S. dishes for the American Bounty
Kitchen, Italian fare for the Caterina de Medici restaurant and
health-conscious dinners for St. Andrew's Cafe.

    The big C.I.A. draw, however, is the French cuisine in the
Escoffier Room. The prix fixe $40 dinner features such classics
as poached Dover sole stuffed with artichokes and tomatoes, and
roasted rack of lamb on ratatouille. The 90-seat restaurant is
sometimes booked three months in advance and boasts a four-star
rating from the Mobil Travel Guide. Over a Kir Royale aperitif,
bemused diners can enjoy a seminar in progress. On view in the
glassed-in kitchen, a dozen nervous young chefs in tall toques
bump into one another as they peel, poach and broil their way
through the evening. At times it may seem that the students will
never turn out a sumptuous meal, but fine dishes ranging from
chilled duck borscht with ginger and melon to apricot mousse
arrive on time, borne by hesitant student waiters.

    The teaching restaurants are a good deal for both schools
and patrons. Proceeds from the dining room of little Dumas Pere
culinary school in Glenview, Ill., a Chicago suburb, help
underwrite tuition costs for the 14 students. "The course value
is $28,000," says school director Juan Snowden. "But the dining
room profit helps knock almost $20,000 off that." Mark Erickson,
the director of culinary education at C.I.A., speaks for many
food educators, though, when he says, "We're more interested in
students' getting good training in the restaurants than in
making a good profit."

    Regular patrons dote on the academic experience. L'Ecole
diner Gilberte Roger, 40, a French citizen who works at the
United Nations, on a recent visit found that her carrots were
too hard and that they had an unreal "American look." But she
enjoyed the rest of her meal so much that she vowed to return
because the restaurant "deserved to be called French." The
splendid menu at the Culinary School of Kendall College in
Evanston, Ill., which serves specialties like roast quail
stuffed with duck sausage and hazelnuts, receives raves from
Stewart Koppel, a retired businessman, who drives three hours
round trip with his wife Sadelle for dinner. Says he: "We keep
coming back because the food is so good, and we get a kick out
of the kids."

    Despite occasionally receiving a low grade for an acrid
vinaigrette or undercooked chicken, the students get kicks of
their own. Henry Hirsch, 26, sometimes forgets that there is a
world beyond the kitchen door as he sautes lamb over the hot
stove at L'Ecole. "You get sick of the food back here," says
Hirsch, a photographer who wants to open a restaurant of his
own. "Then you look out into the dining room, and people are
actually enjoying it." Especially at those prices.