Read The Making of a Chef Online
Authors: Michael Ruhlman
The Making of a Chef (37 page)
“Anybody, questions? All right, now. We need to have a good prep when you walk out today. I also need demo plates from each station, wrapped with plastic, and we'll put them on a rack in the walk-in so Monday I'll have demo plates for the group that walks in. Desserts as well. Anytime you want to do it. But we got seventy-three à la carte on Monday, Day One. I need a heavy setup for the group that walks in here. Oh
YEAH
!” he said.
YEAH
!” he said.
He leaned forward and whispered, “The weekend doesn't start till we're all cleaned up in there. Stay focused. Staaaaaay
FO-cused
.”
FO-cused
.”
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A
half hour later, the chef was in back at the pizza station, using a rosewood-handled paring knife to open quail eggs. He did this on the last day of every block. David and Craig worked with him, paddling cream cheese till it was smooth and slicing fresh dill and chives to add to the cream cheese. While everyone else prepped their stations for this day and Monday as well, pizza station worked on a breakfast pizza for President Monday as well, pizza station worked on a breakfast pizza for President Metz. A quail egg and caviar pizza.
half hour later, the chef was in back at the pizza station, using a rosewood-handled paring knife to open quail eggs. He did this on the last day of every block. David and Craig worked with him, paddling cream cheese till it was smooth and slicing fresh dill and chives to add to the cream cheese. While everyone else prepped their stations for this day and Monday as well, pizza station worked on a breakfast pizza for President Monday as well, pizza station worked on a breakfast pizza for President Metz. A quail egg and caviar pizza.
Because it was a graduation day, Mr. Metz entertained the graduation speaker, Dieter Hannig, of Walt Disney World, and guests, beginning with breakfast in his private dining room. Among the offerings at today's breakfast was a St. Andrew's pizza. For many months Mr. Metz had favored a smoked salmon pizza, created for him by Chef De Santis. “It was a good pizza,” De Santis said. “He just got tired of it. I said, âWhat would you like?' He said, âCome up with a new one.'”
De Santis fooled around with bacon and pancetta until he realized that such pizzas were everywhere and therefore his would be undistinguished at best. He thought “breakfast” and “bacon and eggs” and this led him to consider
the possibility of using quail eggs. He liked the quail egg idea and dumped the bacon. Too cute, too ordinary. He didn't remember if it was he, the fellow, or one of the students who, as they tossed ideas around, brought up caviar, but it immediately sounded goodâcaviar was another kind of egg, and there was now a ring to it. Quail egg and caviar pizza. Interesting. And the sevruga and miniature egg had just the right amount of showiness to it. De Santis made a trial version, and it tasted good enough to offer to Mr. Metz and his guests. (He made the old smoked salmon pizza and sent that up, too, in case the president was displeased with the new creation.) Later that morning the call came down from the president's office. The quail egg and caviar pizza was fine. It would remain the graduation-day breakfast pizza.
the possibility of using quail eggs. He liked the quail egg idea and dumped the bacon. Too cute, too ordinary. He didn't remember if it was he, the fellow, or one of the students who, as they tossed ideas around, brought up caviar, but it immediately sounded goodâcaviar was another kind of egg, and there was now a ring to it. Quail egg and caviar pizza. Interesting. And the sevruga and miniature egg had just the right amount of showiness to it. De Santis made a trial version, and it tasted good enough to offer to Mr. Metz and his guests. (He made the old smoked salmon pizza and sent that up, too, in case the president was displeased with the new creation.) Later that morning the call came down from the president's office. The quail egg and caviar pizza was fine. It would remain the graduation-day breakfast pizza.
When Jeremiah Tower, the San Franciscoâbased chef who had been invited as graduation speaker, tasted it, he suggested to Mr. Metz that they serve champagne. “Caviar needs champagne,” Chef De Santis said, admiring Tower's suggestion. “Coffee just doesn't cut it.” With champagne, the pizza tasted so good Tower put it on his own menu back at Stars.
Students would benefit as well. Each graduation day, Chef De Santis made two extra pizzas so that every student could try it. And our group, because everyone had gotten their tasting plates on the service line by ten on the nose on Wednesdayâonly the second group this year to have done it, the chef saidâwe, too, would drink champagne.
The pizza was not flawless, however. Craig and David had, in their zeal, built the fire too hot. Way too hot.
The chef didn't notice at first, though he was right next to it, opening a couple dozen quail eggs with his paring knife, dropping each into its own ramekin. David and Craig mixed their fresh herbs into the cream cheese. De Santis rolled out a piece of dough, put a plate on top, and cut out a perfect circle. He spread the cream cheese across it, leaving a one-inch rim. He pressed a one-ounce ladle into the cheese around the edge of the pizza, to form divots that would hold the raw eggs in place. Because the eggs set so quickly, he needed to bake the crust first, and he carefully slid the pizza through the semicircular opening onto the stone. He watched it, squinting. He got to work on the second oneâhe always made two in case one was dropped in transport to the president's dining room.
But something wasn't right and he could sense it. He kept turning around to look at the pizza, then slid the peel in to retrieve it. The cheese had, unfortunately, browned slightly but the crust wasn't done; the chef shook
his head. He checked the temperature gauge. Eight hundred ten degrees. He shook his head.
his head. He checked the temperature gauge. Eight hundred ten degrees. He shook his head.
“You guys went
way
overboard with wood,” he said angrily. Then he stared into the oven, its walls glowing orange, the wood cranking away. I could see the chef was
pissed
. He had to have the pizzas ready in twenty minutes. There was no fast way to lower the temperature of a stone oven. In fact, the oven was getting hotter.
way
overboard with wood,” he said angrily. Then he stared into the oven, its walls glowing orange, the wood cranking away. I could see the chef was
pissed
. He had to have the pizzas ready in twenty minutes. There was no fast way to lower the temperature of a stone oven. In fact, the oven was getting hotter.
It was time for me to get back to work on family meal. When the chef was pissed off, you didn't want to be standing around gawking. As I left, I heard him say to David, “Get me a roasting pan! And some long tongs!”
Between the pasta station and grill station, which are adjacent to one another, there is an opening to the back of the kitchen and the pizza station. It's a tight squeeze but there is a small rounded counter here and I chose this spot to cut some vegetables. I'd scarcely begun when I heard the chef scream, “Get outta the way!” He carried in his hands a roasting pan filled with flaming logs, and he was barreling toward me with a crazed look in his eyes. I only had time to drop my knife and dive. The chef slammed the pan on the grill station's stove, heaved the top of the grill off, and dumped the wood into the grill. This was an effective way to halt the temperature of the oven, and, being indoors, a clever place to put fifty pounds of flaming wood. Also, the chef knew he had to move that wood real fast from stone oven to under the exhaust hood of grill station or he'd set off the sprinkler system and send a shower of foam chemicals into everybody's mise en place and shut the whole kitchen down.
The president's pizza would be fine.
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I
t only took a few days to get the hang of a station and all its mise en place, so seven days in one kitchen seemed enough. Service that last day came and went smoothly, the student cooks steady as timepieces. And when the kitchen was clean Chef De Santis called the class to the front. Many were already there, their knives packed, their hats off, hovering over an issue of
Food Arts
magazine, which had a picture of Paul in it with two other young cooks. The magazine had done a story on culinary students and externships and had quoted Paul, then an extern at the El Tovar. “Say it into the microphone,” someone shouted. And Paul eagerly and willingly, with a deep and serious voice, said, “It's taking theory and putting it into practice,” his
voice amplified throughout the entire kitchen. Chef De Santis was watching, chuckling, and shaking his head.
t only took a few days to get the hang of a station and all its mise en place, so seven days in one kitchen seemed enough. Service that last day came and went smoothly, the student cooks steady as timepieces. And when the kitchen was clean Chef De Santis called the class to the front. Many were already there, their knives packed, their hats off, hovering over an issue of
Food Arts
magazine, which had a picture of Paul in it with two other young cooks. The magazine had done a story on culinary students and externships and had quoted Paul, then an extern at the El Tovar. “Say it into the microphone,” someone shouted. And Paul eagerly and willingly, with a deep and serious voice, said, “It's taking theory and putting it into practice,” his
voice amplified throughout the entire kitchen. Chef De Santis was watching, chuckling, and shaking his head.
When we settled down, the chef stepped up to speak.
“I'd like to thank you very, very much for making it enjoyable to come in in the morning,” he said. “I really appreciated your sense of humor. I really appreciated your work. The food you did was great. I hope you'll continue building on what you've done here as you move through the other restaurants. You'll have a great time. The better time you have, the more you're going to learn. Stop by and see me every now and then. I get calls from friends in the industry. Sometimes I'll know about job opportunities out there.”
And then, one by one, the students shook his hand and thanked him as they left.
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O
f the two enduring memories I would leave with, one had occurred that morning. The pizzas were up and cut, and the entire class got a piece and, along with that, a glass of champagne. It was like being at a cocktail party where everyone wore the same thing. Chef De Santis gave us one warning on the pizza: “Be careful. The eggs can be tricky. They tend to run down your chin if you're not careful.” I
was
very careful, and the yolk ran right down the center of my chin before I knew what had happened. The champagne proved to be key to the tasting experience, as the chef had said. Paul looked at me, chewing, a fluted glass in his hand, and said, “Now
this
is what culinary school is all about.” It was a happy moment indeed. Friday, the weekend near, end of a block of table service and cooking, a bright warm day, a slice of quail egg and caviar pizza in one hand, cold champagne in the other, yolk dripping down my chin.
f the two enduring memories I would leave with, one had occurred that morning. The pizzas were up and cut, and the entire class got a piece and, along with that, a glass of champagne. It was like being at a cocktail party where everyone wore the same thing. Chef De Santis gave us one warning on the pizza: “Be careful. The eggs can be tricky. They tend to run down your chin if you're not careful.” I
was
very careful, and the yolk ran right down the center of my chin before I knew what had happened. The champagne proved to be key to the tasting experience, as the chef had said. Paul looked at me, chewing, a fluted glass in his hand, and said, “Now
this
is what culinary school is all about.” It was a happy moment indeed. Friday, the weekend near, end of a block of table service and cooking, a bright warm day, a slice of quail egg and caviar pizza in one hand, cold champagne in the other, yolk dripping down my chin.
The other memory is one that I will keep forever. It is of Chef De Santis. His index finger zooms into the air, veins pop in his neck, his feet rise an inch or so off the carpet, and from his mouth comes a single word:
“TASTE!!!”
“TASTE!!!”
B
ounty
ounty
I
waited nearly half a year before requesting interviews with President Metz and Senior Vice President Ryan. To know a mountain, you don't take a helicopter to the top and look down at it; you start at the bottom and climb up, which is more or less what I had done with the Culinary.
waited nearly half a year before requesting interviews with President Metz and Senior Vice President Ryan. To know a mountain, you don't take a helicopter to the top and look down at it; you start at the bottom and climb up, which is more or less what I had done with the Culinary.
In 1982, Ferdinand Metz invited a twenty-four-year-old to be part of the team that would open the American Bounty Restaurant, the CIA restaurant devoted to America's regional cuisines. At the time, Tim Ryan, a 1977 graduate of the Culinary, was executive chef at La Normande in Pittsburgh, the city where Metz worked as senior experimental chef for Heinz. That Ryan had become a chef-instructor at the age of twenty-four was part of the pattern of his career. He seemed always to be the youngest at everything he did. He was the youngest member ever, in 1984, of a culinary olympic team. He was the youngest cook ever, at the age of twenty-six, to become a certified master chef. At the age of thirty-seven, he became the youngest president of the American Culinary Federation, a group of some twenty-five thousand industry professionals. A year later, he would become chairman of the board of that group, all the while remaining second in command at the Culinary, and, almost by-the-way, picking up his M.B.A. degree.
There's a revealing clip of Ryan cooking in the opening credits of the Culinary's PBS show
Cooking Secrets of the CIA
. He's in uniform, beside a steaming kettle, holding a green bean. “How does a
professional
chef tell if a vegetable is done?” he asks the camera, clearly about to impart secret
wisdom to the masses. Ryan takes a bite of the green bean, pauses, nods, and says, “It's done.” He was just goofing around, he said, and making fun of TV cooks who would suggest that there is any better way of knowing when a green vegetable is cooked, but that is his general manner. While Metz's Germanic formality was often confused with aloofness, Tim Ryan was casual, “one of the guys,” according to one instructor I talked with.
Cooking Secrets of the CIA
. He's in uniform, beside a steaming kettle, holding a green bean. “How does a
professional
chef tell if a vegetable is done?” he asks the camera, clearly about to impart secret
wisdom to the masses. Ryan takes a bite of the green bean, pauses, nods, and says, “It's done.” He was just goofing around, he said, and making fun of TV cooks who would suggest that there is any better way of knowing when a green vegetable is cooked, but that is his general manner. While Metz's Germanic formality was often confused with aloofness, Tim Ryan was casual, “one of the guys,” according to one instructor I talked with.
I had two main questions for Ryan and met with him in his office in the oak-floored baccalaureate wing of Roth Hall. I had only seen him in a suitâhis style was thoroughly corporateâbut to my first question he responded as a cook: “I don't make brown sauce very much anymore.” He paused. “But I prefer a brown roux.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“I like the deep brown color. Brown sauce made with pale roux looks pale to me.” He also noted the appealing nutty flavor of a brown roux. I felt then a decided vindication for my Skills teacher.
Ryan evidently saw my interest in and respect for roux and noted that the year before, he had become concerned as to whether or not he should recommend modernizing the Skills curriculum, notably by not teaching the classical mother sauces at all. He surveyed about forty people in the industry whom he respected. “It really surprised me,” he said. “It was unanimous. I don't recall one person who thought we should change.” All thought the basics were essential. “We're not trendy here,” Ryan said.
My next question concerned a particular student I knew, whom I wouldn't name, in a particular Skills class, who was due to take a practical during a winter storm. When Pardus had given me his we-git-there, we'redifferent speech, was he simply doing what any Skills teacher would do? Or was there, mixed in with the truth, a thread of self-aggrandizement, an attempt to inflate the importance of Skills class and therefore the whole notion of a culinary education beyond what it really was? People cut classes all the time and didn't go through what Pardus had put me through. Wasn't that whole we-git-there business a tad overdramatic?
Ryan nodded as though he'd heard this before and said, “Here's our philosophy and we publish it several times each winter. Unless the power goes out, we're gonna go on. One, over eighty percent of the students are here. Two, the culture of the school is our faculty will get here.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Don't know,” he said. “They'll
get
here. It's been that way historically.”
get
here. It's been that way historically.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I think they're just dedicated, and in our industry you show up for work. That's the way it goes, and that
is
a value we're trying to instill. So here's what we tell students. We never want to endanger anyone, but in your life you have to make your own decisions, and you have to accept responsibility for those decisions. Please, if you're going to endanger yourself or whatever, that's, you know, your decision. The school's going to continue. That's just the way that it is. Our rules will go on. It's no different from life outside. Restaurants will be open. You work in a hotel, the hotel is going to be open. And if you don't show up, will you get paid? No. That's our philosophy. It can seem harsh, but that's what life is. If you don't show up for work, even for good reasonâyou had a car accident, you couldn't get in, what have youâyou won't get paid that day. And that's part of professionalism. And that's one of the problems the industry has, too. People changing jobs, people acting irresponsibly, people burning bridges, people not showing up for work, and we don't want that to be folks who come from the CIA. And though we would never want to put anybody in a situation that would endanger them and
trust
that they would be smart enough not to go out if it truly was dangerous, you'd be surprised what kind of response you can get from people when you don't leave them a back door. Not everybody here is young, but people are at least in some moldable shape of their life because they're going through a career transformation, or they're entering a new career. If you take away all the options to do it the easy wayâwell I don't really feel like it, I'd have to dig the driveway out, I'd have to salt, I'd have to get up an hour earlier, or whateverâa lot of people take the easy way out. If they don't have the option to take the easy way out, they'll be surprised what they can do.”
is
a value we're trying to instill. So here's what we tell students. We never want to endanger anyone, but in your life you have to make your own decisions, and you have to accept responsibility for those decisions. Please, if you're going to endanger yourself or whatever, that's, you know, your decision. The school's going to continue. That's just the way that it is. Our rules will go on. It's no different from life outside. Restaurants will be open. You work in a hotel, the hotel is going to be open. And if you don't show up, will you get paid? No. That's our philosophy. It can seem harsh, but that's what life is. If you don't show up for work, even for good reasonâyou had a car accident, you couldn't get in, what have youâyou won't get paid that day. And that's part of professionalism. And that's one of the problems the industry has, too. People changing jobs, people acting irresponsibly, people burning bridges, people not showing up for work, and we don't want that to be folks who come from the CIA. And though we would never want to put anybody in a situation that would endanger them and
trust
that they would be smart enough not to go out if it truly was dangerous, you'd be surprised what kind of response you can get from people when you don't leave them a back door. Not everybody here is young, but people are at least in some moldable shape of their life because they're going through a career transformation, or they're entering a new career. If you take away all the options to do it the easy wayâwell I don't really feel like it, I'd have to dig the driveway out, I'd have to salt, I'd have to get up an hour earlier, or whateverâa lot of people take the easy way out. If they don't have the option to take the easy way out, they'll be surprised what they can do.”
Of course Pardus had been right, and I was grateful to him. I knew, beneath my skepticism, that what he had said was true, and not puffery. It wasn't a game here, it wasn't make-believe and it wasn't play. If it had been I wouldn't have reacted so strongly, and I certainly wouldn't have driven twenty-five miles on icy roads to make béchamel sauce. There was more to it than that.
The Culinary Institute is often criticized by its own students for being make-believe, for being not-real-life. I'm not sure why this is. Also, cooks and chefs throughout the industry who did not graduate from or work for the CIA often put the place down and deride its graduates. Detractors claim graduates of the Culinary are unqualified and demand more money than they're worth, or that the Culinary Institute of America is an ivory tower cut
off from the industry and filled with old-men chefs making creamed broccoli and cauliflower polonaise.
off from the industry and filled with old-men chefs making creamed broccoli and cauliflower polonaise.
I hadn't come to answer either of those claimsâneither of which seemed to me to be trueâbut I was repeatedly struck by the forcefulness of the detractors' emotions. They were without exception vehement. Why? If what they believed was true, then they needn't hire CIA graduates or concern themselves with what happened inside the school. But it obviously did matter to them.
The reason, clearly, was because the Culinary Institute of America is enormously influential, unquestionably the most influential culinary school in the United States and perhaps the world, and it has a powerful voice in the country's $313 billion food service industry. How could it be otherwise? The Culinary Institute of America educates between eight thousand and ten thousand industry professionals every year in its undergraduate degree and continuing education programs. Assuming the West Coast campus, Greystone, grows, that number will increase. Those eight thousand to ten thousand people cannot help but disseminate what they learn at the Culinary to their staffs and coworkers, making the Culinary's impact exponential. Their myriad programs in other countries make this dissemination international in scope. With its vast resourcesâits facilities and the combined knowledge of all its chefs, along with all the knowledge that has accrued during half a century of culinary educationâthe Culinary Institute of America was poised to become the world center of food knowledge, information, and distribution. The Internet promised one day to make all of it available to every home and business with a computer and modem.
So I can understand people's strong reactions to the Culinary. The steady stream of CIA graduatesâsome good cooks, some inept, some famous, some not, some greedy, some true, some old, and some youngâwas diverse; not any single graduate was representative of the whole. On the other hand, the information that the Culinary passed along, and the values that were inextricably bound up in that information, soaked steadily into the industry.
Â
Â
I
n her book
Masters of American Cookery
, the food writer and historian Betty Fussell argues that a food “revolution” began in the United States in the 1940s, following the Second World War. Fussell suggests that as legions of servicemen returned to America from abroad having by necessity opened their palates to an unusual range of flavors from Europe to the Far
East, a curiosity and openness about food germinated. Before long, transcontinental travel became available to the masses, further illuminating a country devoted to canned soup and Coca-Cola. Following World War II, Fussell writes, and on through the 1980s, four noncooksâM. F. K. Fisher, Craig Claiborne, James Beard, and Julia Childâvia writing and television, propelled this food revolution, which was characterized by an increase in the country's knowledge of, interest in, and proficiency with food, including, importantly, the unusual notion that cooking was fun. This revolution, which took hold in the 1960s, is ongoing.
n her book
Masters of American Cookery
, the food writer and historian Betty Fussell argues that a food “revolution” began in the United States in the 1940s, following the Second World War. Fussell suggests that as legions of servicemen returned to America from abroad having by necessity opened their palates to an unusual range of flavors from Europe to the Far
East, a curiosity and openness about food germinated. Before long, transcontinental travel became available to the masses, further illuminating a country devoted to canned soup and Coca-Cola. Following World War II, Fussell writes, and on through the 1980s, four noncooksâM. F. K. Fisher, Craig Claiborne, James Beard, and Julia Childâvia writing and television, propelled this food revolution, which was characterized by an increase in the country's knowledge of, interest in, and proficiency with food, including, importantly, the unusual notion that cooking was fun. This revolution, which took hold in the 1960s, is ongoing.
Another arm of the revolution began at exactly that time, when an attorney named Francis Rothâthe first woman ever admitted to the Connecticut Bar Associationâwas asked to become director of a cooking school in Connecticut. The New Haven Restaurant Institute had been conceived in 1944 by an association of restaurateurs who feared that, with the war on, their restaurants would run out of cooks, who were then overseas fighting. The school eventually opened two years later, in February 1946, in a rented storefront with an enrollment of fifty men. Returning G.I.s in need of a trade ensured the growth of the school; it moved to a new building after a year and, by 1950, had graduated six hundred veterans and changed its name to the Culinary Institute of America. Francis Roth proved to be a dynamo, and for nearly twenty years she lectured before restaurant groups and raised money for the school, determined to create and maintain not a trade school or junior college, but rather the best cooking school in the United States.
By the time the Culinary moved to its current digs in 1972, enrollment had risen to thirteen hundred. Four years later the progressive learning year was implemented. Tim Ryan, a student at the time, recalled how crazy the standard school schedule had been for a cooking school, with the “mad scramble” of eleven hundred students arriving in September. “On Day One,” Ryan said, “you could be in Advanced Patissserie. You could be in the equivalent of Escoffier or American Bounty and never have had Sanitation.”
By 1980, when Metz became presidentânot without considerable Sturm und Drang among the board of directorsâenrollment exceeded eighteen hundred; alumni had swelled to sixteen thousand. But the Culinary was, as it had always been, a trade school, packed with blue-collar workers with a high-school education, many of them coming from the ranks of the armed services. Standards of dress and behavior were erratic. One story had Metz
presiding over his first graduation ceremony, mortified by a graduate who received her diploma wearing a cowboy hat and a chef's jacket she'd apparently been wearing since she'd returned from her externship. Furthermore, the Culinary had a new president almost every year during the mid-1970s, making growth of any kind difficult.
Restaurants & Institutions,
a trade magazine, devoted an entire issue to the Culinary Institute of America, mapping out in detail the history of the school in honor of its fiftieth anniversary. It mentions not a single word about anything that happened between 1975, when Jacob Rosenthal retired as president, and 1980, when Ferdinand Metz took over. Had Tim Ryan not graduated in 1977 (he himself has fond memories of the place then), it would seem as if those years didn't even happen.
presiding over his first graduation ceremony, mortified by a graduate who received her diploma wearing a cowboy hat and a chef's jacket she'd apparently been wearing since she'd returned from her externship. Furthermore, the Culinary had a new president almost every year during the mid-1970s, making growth of any kind difficult.
Restaurants & Institutions,
a trade magazine, devoted an entire issue to the Culinary Institute of America, mapping out in detail the history of the school in honor of its fiftieth anniversary. It mentions not a single word about anything that happened between 1975, when Jacob Rosenthal retired as president, and 1980, when Ferdinand Metz took over. Had Tim Ryan not graduated in 1977 (he himself has fond memories of the place then), it would seem as if those years didn't even happen.
When I asked Ryan what Metz had been responsible for, Ryan thought for a moment, then, off the top of his head, began a list of kitchens, classes, restaurants, and buildings but gave up in mid-list. “Just about everything we have,” he said, finally. For his first five years Metz worked “like a oneman army,” Ryan said, during which time he put in place several teams that would lead and direct the various arms of the Culinary into the next century.
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F
ocusing first on excellence of culinary education, quality ingredients and equipment, and raising the standards of dress and behavior among students and instructors, Metz soon expanded his vision beyond the immediate future. He created numerous kitchensâsuch as the experimental kitchen, the fish kitchen and butchery, American Regional Cuisine, and Charcuterie. He initiated the Introduction to Gastronomy course to provide an overview of the culture into which the students were entering. He opened three new restaurants serving the public. St. Andrew's Cafe was one of the first restaurants in the country to focus on nutritional recipes and methods, and the American Bounty Restaurant was one of the first restaurants in the country to celebrate and explore American regional cuisine, years before “regional” became a restaurant buzzword.
ocusing first on excellence of culinary education, quality ingredients and equipment, and raising the standards of dress and behavior among students and instructors, Metz soon expanded his vision beyond the immediate future. He created numerous kitchensâsuch as the experimental kitchen, the fish kitchen and butchery, American Regional Cuisine, and Charcuterie. He initiated the Introduction to Gastronomy course to provide an overview of the culture into which the students were entering. He opened three new restaurants serving the public. St. Andrew's Cafe was one of the first restaurants in the country to focus on nutritional recipes and methods, and the American Bounty Restaurant was one of the first restaurants in the country to celebrate and explore American regional cuisine, years before “regional” became a restaurant buzzword.
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