Restaurants were once dominated by European-trained chefs and alumni of the Culinary Institute of America, but more chefs are questioning the benefits of formal training over hands-on experience, reports Samantha Melamed, a staff writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Nonetheless, he now teaches a culinary class at the city’s Drexel University.
While culinary school offers the hope of fast-forwarding past years of chopping onions or working at a restaurant for free to gain experience, it comes at an ever-growing cost, The Inquirer reported. Certificates now start at about $12,000 at community college or a small private school. An associate’s degree runs $25,000; one at places like the Art Institute or the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College in Philadelphia costs nearly twice that. A bachelor’s degree at Drexel costs more than $250,000.
A 2014 survey by researchers at Cornell and Ohio State universities found that kitchen workers with degrees earned just 8 percent more than those without. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that chefs and head cooks earned a median income of $42,490, and cooks earned a median salary of $20,550 in 2012, The Inquirer reported.
“It’s not a very lucrative field. It’s not a medical school or business or engineering school where you can do a clear return on investment,” Jonathan Deutsch, director of Drexel’s hospitality program, told The Inquirer. “Culinary education has become a little fetishized by the whole Food Network, celebrity-chef thing. I can’t tell you how many people I talk to who have very good professional lives and say, ‘I wish I could quit everything and go to culinary school.'”
The number of people pursuing culinary certificates grew by 63 percent from 2006 to 2010, according to the Education News Career Index, and enrollment in bachelor’s programs nearly doubled.
“When I started, virtually everyone went the apprenticeship route,” said William Tillinghast, director of the International Culinary Institute at the Art Institute of Philadelphia. “There were four or five apprentices running around most restaurants and good country clubs; there was a saucier, there was a pastry chef and a chef who would do the soups, sauces and stocks.”
Today, kitchens are smaller and chefs busier. “The chefs don’t have enough time to spend with the apprentices,” Tillinghast told The Inquirer.
Schools have picked up the slack with expanded offerings. At the Culinary Arts Institute at Montgomery County Community College, the curriculum includes more hands-on classes in a new 15,000-sq. ft. facility with four kitchens. There’s a new, student-run retail bakery and café, and a second restaurant is set to debut this month, The Inquirer reported. Francine Marz, the director, said enrollment has increased 50 percent since 2013, to 165 students.
Christina DeSilva, 21, who was recently named executive chef at Taproom on 19th in South Philadelphia, told The Inquirer her education at JNA was crucial, providing a connection with an alum for an externship at Stateside. After jobs there and at Morgan’s Pier, she felt ready to run her own kitchen. “It definitely gives you the foundation. You need to know the technique before you can start to be creative with it, and that’s what culinary school gives you.”
Culinary degrees aren’t always an indicator of success, though, The Inquirer reported.
Marcie Turney runs four restaurants in Midtown Village, and is preparing to hire for a fifth, Bud & Marilyn’s. “I’ll get someone who went to CIA, which is supposedly our best culinary school, and they can’t do three things at once. Everyone is different,” she said. (She herself attended the Restaurant School but never graduated; she was too busy working as a chef to finish her final project.)
While some of Philadelphia’s young chefs are CIA alumni, there is an impressive list of young, successful, informally trained stars, The Inquirer reported.
Colin Mason, the 29-year-old executive chef at Sola in Bryn Mawr, got his education in the city’s top kitchens while working long hours for free. He took jobs where he could work with mentors. “For a while, I had a rule that I was only going to work at places that had three bells,” he told The Inquirer. “It was like going to culinary school and getting paid.”
Some chefs say they prefer to hire educated people, but not necessarily culinary-school graduates, The Inquirer reported.
Chip Roman, whose newest restaurant is the Treemont, said: “For a serious position, I like to see some kind of higher education, whether religion, philosophy, or engineering. Culinary is a plus.”
Others told The Inquirer that, given the current pace of restaurant openings, managers aren’t worried about education: Anyone with experience has a shot, especially since there’s a lot of competition among restaurants looking for cooks.
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