The Culinary Institute of America

History

The New Haven Restaurant Institute was founded by culinary educator Frances Roth and Katherine Angell on May 22, 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut as a vocational training school for returning World War II veterans. With assistance from Yale University, the school purchased the Davies mansion in New Haven's Prospect Hill neighborhood. The first class consisted of sixteen students and the faculty included a dietitian, a baker, and a chef. In 1947 the school was renamed the Restaurant Institute of Connecticut to reflect its growing repute; the school's name was changed again to the Culinary Institute of America in 1951.

Enrollment grew to approximately 1,000 students by 1969, beyond the capacity of its original campus, so the school purchased the St. Andrew-on-Hudson Jesuit novitiate in Hyde Park, New York in 1970. In 1971, the college began awarding associate degrees, and opened its doors in Hyde Park on the following year. From 1974 to 1979, the school built three residence halls, a culinary library, a career planning center, and a learning resources center. From 1982 to 1984, the American Bounty and Caterina de' Medici Restaurants and St. Andrew's Café opened. In 1984, the school's continuing education center (later named the J. Willard Marriott Education Center) opened, and the school improved its teaching kitchens and constructed an experimental kitchen and food laboratory. In 1990, the school opened a baking and pastry facility, named two years later as the Shunsuke Takaki School of Baking and Pastry. In 1993, the school opened its Conrad N. Hilton Library and began offering bachelor's degree programs. In 1995, the school's first branch campus opened, the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena, California. In 1998, the Student Recreation Center was opened.

The Apple Pie Bakery Café opened in 2000, and the Colavita Center opened the following year. More residence halls were built at the school's Hyde Park campus in 2004. In 2005, Anton Plaza opened in Hyde Park while the Ventura Center for Menu Research and Development opened in St. Helena. The school's third campus opened in 2008 in San Antonio. Two years later, the CIA opened a campus in Singapore consisting of a facility on the campus of Temasek Polytechnic. In 2012, the CIA began offering a bachelor's degree program in culinary science, and in 2014 introduced a bachelor's degree in applied food studies. Also, in 2012 the college was inducted into the Culinary Hall of Fame. In 2015, the college expanded its recreation center and added a new dining facility for students, called The Egg. Both are housed in the CIA's Student Commons building. In the same year, the college acquired a portion of Copia, a museum in downtown Napa, California that operated from 2001 to 2008. In 2016, the college opened a campus, the Culinary Institute of America at Copia, which houses the CIA's new Food Business School. The college, which was outgrowing its St. Helena campus, purchased the northern portion of the Copia property for $12.5 million.

Hyde Park, New York

The school's largest and primary campus operates four public restaurants for students to gain experience in kitchen and management skills. Food served at the American Bounty Restaurant highlights Hudson Valley produce and is prepared in the style of cuisines of the Americas. The Bocuse Restaurant serves traditional French food using modern techniques. It was the first of the school's restaurants, and opened as the Epicurean Room and Rabalais Grill in 1973, before being renamed the Escoffier Restaurant (after Auguste Escoffier) in 1974. In 2012 it was again renamed to honor Paul Bocuse, and given a $3 million renovation by Adam Tihany. The Ristorante Caterina de' Medici is a restaurant with a focus on authentic Italian food. The Apple Pie Bakery Café has a casual atmosphere and serves sandwiches, soups, and baked foods.

The school also frequently creates on-campus pop-up restaurants, including Post Road Brew House. The second of the campus' pop-ups, the gastropub opened in February 2016 in the General Foods Nutrition Center (formerly St. Andrew's Cafe).

The campus offers intercollegiate, intramural, and club athletics. Its intercollegiate program began in 2004, and is affiliated with the Hudson Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

Napa County, California

The CIA has a branch campus in Napa County, California. The primary campus in St. Helena is known as the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone; the satellite campus in the city of Napa is known as the Culinary Institute of America at Copia. The campus runs associate degree programs as well as certificate programs, continuing education courses, custom classes, conferences, and seminars including the Worlds of Flavor International Conference & Festival each year. The Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies runs wine instruction classes and a certification program for wine professionals.

The campus also operates two restaurants. The Gatehouse Restaurant offers contemporary dishes using regional ingredients, and the Bakery Café by illy serves sandwiches, soups, salads, breads, desserts, and hot beverages prepared by students in the college's baking and pastry arts degree program. The campus formerly operated the Conservatory Restaurant, which was run by students of the American Food Studies: Farm-to-Table Cooking concentration of the bachelor's degree program.

The Copia satellite campus was purchased in 2015. The building and grounds were formerly Copia, a museum in downtown Napa that operated from 2001 to 2008. The campus opened in 2016 as the Culinary Institute of America at Copia, to house the CIA's new Food Business School and includes a restaurant, the Restaurant at CIA Copia.

San Antonio, Texas

The San Antonio campus is located in Downtown San Antonio's Pearl Brewery, and runs associate degree programs in culinary arts and baking and pastry arts, as well as programs for professionals and food enthusiasts. The campus' restaurant, Nao Latin Gastro Bar, serves Latin American dishes in a contemporary style. The campus also hosts seminars and conferences for foodservice professionals.

Republic of Singapore

The Culinary Institute of America, with the Singapore Institute of Technology and Temasek Polytechnic, runs its bachelor's degree program in Culinary Arts Management in Singapore to graduates of Polytechnic institutions who have earned diplomas in hospitality, tourism, or culinary arts. Temasek Polytechnic and the CIA constructed a 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m²) educational facility with three teaching kitchens to house the programs.

Organization and administration

The college's president is L. Timothy Ryan, a graduate of the school and its fifth president. The school's full-time faculty number approximately 170, and the college employs a number of American Culinary Federation-certified Certified Master Chefs, as well as Master Bakers certified by the Retail Bakers of America. The faculty also includes authors of textbooks, magazines, and other published media. Many of the instructors are graduates of the school.

Degree programs

The college offers Associate in Occupational Studies degrees in either Culinary Arts or Baking and Pastry Arts at its New York and St. Helena campuses. The New York campus also offers Bachelor of Professional Studies degrees in Culinary Science and Applied Food Studies, and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Food Business Management. The CIA's Texas campus offers Associate in Applied Science degrees in either Culinary Arts or Baking and Pastry Arts. In the bachelor's degree management programs, concentrations include Advanced Concepts in Baking and Pastry; Advanced Wine, Beverage, and Hospitality; Asian Cuisine; Farm-to-Table Cooking; Intrapreneurship; Italian Cuisine; and Latin Cuisine. Most of these concentrations include a semester away at either the CIA's California, Texas, or Singapore campuses. Each program requires a 15-week externship at a CIA-approved foodservice operation. The school's degree programs are accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

The CIA also runs an accelerated culinary program for students who already have at least four years of experience in foodservice. The program includes the same basic classes as the school's associate degree programs, however the accelerated program does not include the externship requirement, and several classes are run with a faster-paced curriculum or including more in-depth material.

Other programs and courses

In 2015, the Culinary Institute of America launched the Food Business School, its center for executive and graduate education. The college's New York campus also offers continuing education courses and certificate programs. The California and Texas campuses run several continuing education classes, and the California campus also has programs for wine professionals. A variety of programs for food enthusiasts are run as well at all the U.S. campuses. The college partnered with Epicurious in running an online cooking school featuring a variety of culinary classes. The CIA also runs a certification program called ProChef, a program to recognize culinary and academic skills, as well as familiarity with business practices.

Libraries and museums

The Greystone campus maintains the Margie Schubert Library, located adjacent to the school's teaching kitchens.

The school's Archives and Special Collections department is located in the Hyde Park campus' Conrad N. Hilton Library. Highlights of the collection includes a Roman amphora displayed in the Archives Reading Room, menu covers for New York City's Chanterelle Restaurant which were designed by notable artists, and a 1556 Latin edition of Athenaeus' Deipnosophistae, volume 15.

The college plans to open the Chuck Williams Culinary Arts Collection at its Copia campus in 2017.

Publications

mise en place is the college's magazine for alumni and the public. The magazine aims to improve the relationship between the school, its alumni, and the public by providing information of interest about the college, its alumni, and students; covering of major issues and events concerning the college; and featuring the leadership and contributions of the school's alumni.

La Papillote, the school's student newspaper, was established in 1979. The newspaper's stated purpose is to report the news of the institution to the students and other members of the campus community. The newspaper also examines contemporary issues of the industry to inform and challenge students' minds. The editor-in-chief position is held by a current student, and the paper uses submissions from students, chefs, and outside professionals.

Branding

The CIA has a brand licensing program that sells branded products for foodservice operations and households, and it also publishes cookbooks for professional and home use. The school's general cookbook, The Professional Chef also has an interactive iPad edition that PC Magazine called "a new frontier for books." During the late 1990s, the CIA produced the PBS television show Cooking Secrets of the CIA.

Awards

The CIA annually honors people for success and achievements in the foodservice industry. The Augie Award was named for Auguste Escoffier, the French chef and restaurateur who popularized and modernized French cuisine. The award is presented at the annual CIA Leadership Awards event; the first awards were given in April 2007. In 2017, Shep Gordon, Jacques Pépin, and Martha Stewart were recipients of Augie Awards.

Notable people

The CIA has approximately 49,000 graduates in the culinary industry. Some of the college's notable alumni include:

In popular culture

Several books have been written about the school. Journalist Michael Ruhlman, in his first book about the CIA, The Making of a Chef, documents his experiences as an "undercover student" as he passes through the classes at an accelerated rate. In another book, The Soul of a Chef, he documents seven chefs taking the ACF Master Chef test held there semi-annually. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain also features an in-depth discussion of the author's education at the CIA. The book Beaten, Seared, and Sauced: On Becoming a Chef at The Culinary Institute of America by Jonathan Dixon, provides a first-hand experience of a student's experiences at the CIA. The 1995 film Heavy was partially filmed at the school, using interiors and exteriors of its buildings. In 2015, the SyFy show Ghost Hunters filmed an episode about the school's Hyde Park campus.