advice on culinary schools in nyc.....

This will come as a great suprise to many, but I am partial to I.C.E. I think the faculty and environment are great. I am not a professional but a constant avocational student there. They do well with externships and Steve Kelly works very hard to amke sure that grads get jobs. I would recommend that you visit each of the schools. Call Linda Simon @212-847-0778. She will be happy to show you around. Tell her I sent you :)

to KyleW

Thanks for the laugh!

BTW: YOU are a bread machine, no?

I'm thinking of changing my name. How does ZojirushiW sound?

nyc cooking schools

I looked very closely at FCI and ICE. They are both good schools, depending on what you're looking for. FCI is more expensive, but you get more hands on restaurant experience -- about 75% of your time there is spent in their restaurant. It also has a better reputation, but ICE's is definitely growing.

I want to be a food writer, so spending more money for more restaurant experience didn't make sense for me. I chose ICE because it was cheaper and had a broader curriculum (FCI seemed at little too franco-centric). Also, instead of experience in the FCI-owned restaurant, you do a 210-hour externship in a well-known New York restaurant (or other location, like magazine test kitchen). You may end up chopping onions the whole time, but again -- since I don't want to be a chef -- it's more important to me to trade less cooking experience for a big name on my resume and good contacts at a famous restaurant.

So far my instructors and fellow students at ICE have been great. I can highly recommend it.

I'm very glad to hear nice things about I.C.E. Who are your instructors Ted? Michael? Meg? Sabrina?

I would recommend spending a day at the school. Most school will be happy to allow you to visit the school and attend classes for a day.

I know that class audits can be set up at I.C.E.

ICE/class audits

I sat in on classes at ICE and FCI. I was very impressed with both. I also ate at L'Ecole, FCI's student restaurant, which was excellent.

Kyle, to answer your question, I've had Chefs Ted and Anne as teachers. Ted is amazing, and Anne is also excellent. So far ICE has been a great experience.

lolo - I have taken rec clases with bot Anne and Ted and agree that they are both great. Ted got a lot of his trainning at Chez Panisse, I think. Anne became my hero on 9/11. We were preparing to cook all the food that had been delivered for classses that had been canceled that day. She was one of the organizers. Her last instuction was "Remember, just because it's a disaster is no excuse not to make nice food." :)

ICE

chloe23 -

I'm taking the culinary arts program. To audit a class, just call the school and ask to speak with someone in admissions. They have people audit classes all the time, so they'll set you right up.
(If you're serious about FCI, they'll comp you dinner at their restaurant.)

Kyle -

I love that story about Chef Anne! I will definitely share it with my classmates. And yes, you're right, Chef Ted did a stint at Chez Panisse early in his career.

It will always be Peter Kump To Me...

I attended Peter Kump when it was on 91st street way uptown. They have since moved their operation and abandoned the name of the founder which pi$$es me off to no end.

However, I won't let that taint my opinion of the school. But you'll notice, I'll always refer to it as Kump.

Kump has had some stellar instructors, and I can only hope after these years have passed that they didn't lower their standards. When you look at a roster that includes people like Nick Malgeri, you can't help but be impressed. Alumni-instructors also include Sarah Moulton, James Peterson, Ruth Van Waerebeeke and other pretty heavy hitters.

Kump's placement program is very effective. They were a very serious group when I was there and from their newsletter, it looks as though they remain dedicated to the utmost in culinary education.

Spend a day in their facility if you can. Take a short course. It will give you a taste (no pun) of how they operate but do keep in mind that every instructor is different.

Here is a list of the courses I have taken and completed...

All 8 Techs of Fine Cooking
Canning
Spa Cuisine
Catering
Restaurant management

We are about to move and when we reach our destination, I hope to apply some if not all of these topics to our business. ;)

Rah Rah Peter Kump!

Re: It will always be Peter Kump To Me...

Not entirely:) The official name of the school is The Institute of Culinary Education, Founded by Peter Kump.

The curriculum has changed as well. Techs 1-8 no longer comprise the Career Program. Techs 1-3 are still offered on the recreational side. If you can bring them at least 9 people, they will set up any of Techs 4-8.

I too liked the Old name. I think Peter Kump had a solid reputation in the industry as a culinary educator. Oh well, nothing is forever.

Rah Rah Nancy Newman :)

Nancy!!!!

Originally posted by KyleW
The official name of the school is The Institute of Culinary Education, Founded by Peter Kump.

Not one person who posted here referred to it that way. :( I just don't want him to be forgotten. He did so much for the culinary field...he's mentioned many times in Julia Child's biography. I met him and he was very interested in our class' progress. He was generally a nice guy (to the students). I was hoping his son would take it over but kids ditching a parent's business is not unusual.


The curriculum has changed as well. Techs 1-8 no longer comprise the Career Program. Techs 1-3 are still offered on the recreational side. If you can bring them at least 9 people, they will set up any of Techs 4-8.

I knew there would be a major upheaval!!


I too liked the Old name. I think Peter Kump had a solid reputation in the industry as a culinary educator. Oh well, nothing is forever.

Ah, but yes, the roots are forever! I was incensed when I read Smilow's account of "why" they changed the name...something about having "outgrown" the original name. How do you "outgrow" your founder? I can't "outgrow" my mother!!


Rah Rah Nancy Newman :)

Yes!! I LOVED Nancy! Is she still there??? Nancy used to laugh at me because I typed my notes. If you look at my list of Tech teachers, it appears as though there are only two. Our group was passed like a football between Ruth Van Waerebeek and Nancy Newman all the way up through the Techs. Nancy was fun and Ruth was very serious but I could get a chuckle out of her... Overall my Kump experience was great. I may visit the school when we visit New York. I'd like to see how it is now.

Both schools will give you pretty much the same technical skills, and similar externship opportunities. And now I.C.E. has a management component, too. So think about: which do you think you will find the better place to learn? Where do you feel more comfortable that you'll get the training you want?

Did you get to observe classes? If not, you should, even just for a few minutes. Take a look at the HUMAN equation. How does the chef-instructor interact with the students? Does s/he treat them respectfully? Does s/he make sure that they understand the lesson, or just rattle off the material? How do the students act toward the instructor? Do the students seem like people you could get along with? (I don't mean do you like them or are they just like you; do you think you'll be able to focus on learning without being too distracted by the others.) Do the other students seem like people you might want to work with in the future?

And compare the actual syllabi carefully. Which one covers what you think you'll need to succeed? Is the progression of skill development logical to you? Can you get "simulated real-life" experience as part of the program? (At NYRS, we did simulations in which our class became a restaurant kitchen and we fed the entire school; you could see then and there who'd make it in the business and who couldn't hack it.)

Finally, when you're just hanging around there: do you see former students coming back and talking with the faculty? How are those interactions? Do you get the feeling that the faculty really care about their students? Do the graduates seem to be glad they went there?

Hope this all helps.