Q: Does The French Culinary Institute teach more than French cooking?
A: Much more. You'll master the foundation of all great Western cuisine, and become an extremely well rounded chef who is prepared for any position in a top restaurant or culinary establishment. So why is "French" even a part of our name? Simple. Just as Latin is the basis for most Western languages, French technique is the foundation for most Western cooking. Innovators such as Carême and Escoffier codified these methods, breaking down cooking into distinct actions such as "sauté," "julienne," and "braise." This gives chefs everywhere a unified vocabulary and a common understanding. As a student, once you master these skills you can apply them to any cuisine, whether it be Thai, Continental, or Indian.
The proof, of course, is in the diverse career choices of our graduates. Most are decidedly not French. Bobby Flay, entrepreneur and Television Food Network star, is heralded as one of the best southwestern chefs in America today. Mae Jean Adams of the Corn Exchange in South Dakota claims American harvest cuisine as her specialty. And Adam Aviles, restaurant and banquet chef at Twentieth Century Fox's The Commissary, continually searches the globe for flavors and cuisines to satisfy demanding celebrity palates. Just French cooking, you ask? Not by a long shot.
Q: Can I train during the evening so I don't have to quit my day job?
A: If you're a career changer who would rather ease into your culinary arts education, we've set up a nine-month evening program that offers the same challenges as our day curriculum in a three-night-per-week format. So no one at your day job has to know you're planning to switch careers, unless you decide to tell them. Culinary Arts students can choose to attend classes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday or Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from 5:45 pm to 10:45 pm Pastry Arts students attend Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5:30 pm to 10:30 pm, or Tuesday and Thursday from 3:30 pm to 8:30 pm and Saturday from 9 am to 2 pm.
Q: As an international student, do I qualify for a student visa if I attend The FCI?
A: We issue the application that allows students to apply for the M-1 visa. Graduates of The FCI can apply for a work visa and work in the U.S. for up to one year. To help you navigate this or any other aspect of your application process, The FCI has two full time staff members dedicated solely to supporting International students. We are committed to making your experience as an applicant, and later as a student, go as smoothly as possible. Click here to learn more about our programs for international students.
Q: Can I attend The FCI right out of high school?
A: Yes, if you're a recent high school graduate, we welcome you to study at The FCI. In fact, star alumnus Bobby Flay (host of many popular Food Network series including Hot Off the Grill and Food Nation) came to The FCI straight from high school. For students who know where they're going into the exciting world of being a chef, into culinary TV and print media, or other food-related fields. Our school is ideal. We offer the best way to prepare for a culinary career in just six to nine months.
Q: Why should I go to The French Culinary Institute? Wouldn't I learn more by working in a restaurant?
A: Probably not. In a restaurant, your culinary education is limited to items served on its specific menu, and to those times when someone's free to teach you. So if you work in a steak house, for example, chances are good that you'd never master the complicated art of seafood cookery. And even if you did manage to cobble together a culinary education from different cooks, it most likely wouldn't be from chef-instructors who have been trained in both the culinary arts and the craft of teaching. In other words, you'll only be as good as the chefs you've learned from. So it's no surprise that 46% of our students come to us because they want to unlearn the bad habits they picked up while working in restaurants.
At The FCI, our hands-on, Total ImmersionSM approach means you'll learn the 250 competencies that form the foundation of all Western cuisine in the shortest appropriate time, -- and you learn it all from expert chefs. Our courses cover everything from knife skills and sauce-making to budgeting and ordering ingredients. What's more, you won't graduate without having the opportunity to work and learn in a well-run, fast paced, real world kitchen. Our advanced culinary students round out their education preparing every dish that's served in our highly regarded on-campus restaurant, L'Ecole. In fact, at The FCI you'll get into a professional kitchen faster than you would at any other culinary arts institute.
Q: Will The FCI prepare me only for a career in a restaurant kitchen?
A: No, The FCI is truly a launching pad for an almost unlimited range of culinary careers. And with the growing popularity of the culinary arts, there's an overwhelming need for talented people in all areas of the food industry. Many of our students chose The FCI over other schools because they felt it offered accelerated, excellent training for positions as varied as event planners, public relations representatives, consultants, food writers and editors, TV producers, and food stylists. In fact we've had great success placing graduates in long- and short-term positions at Food & Wine, Food Arts, New York, Saveur, and Redbook magazines; RestaurantTrade, the hi-tech firm that caters to the restaurant business; the popular Food Network; as well as the film and food-photography industries.
Q: How does The FCI train its teachers?
A: In important ways, quite differently from any other culinary arts program out there. Like other culinary institutes, we do believe it's crucial to teach our students the basics of cooking so they can get the kind of satisfying careers they seek. But we also believe this is possible only if our Chef-Instructors are outstanding and inspiring teachers. So we've worked closely with the director of the highly regarded Klingenstein Center at Columbia University Teachers College to help our instructors develop powerful communication and teaching skills. And it works. The environment in our classrooms is dynamic, inspired, sometimes electric. Peek into any of our classrooms and you'll find our Chef-Instructors giving riveting lectures, demonstrating methods with passion again and again, parsing the sometimes confusing language of cooking, and working one-on-one with humor and joy to help students sharpen their techniques and understanding.
Q: Will I really learn everything I need to know at such a fast pace?
A: Alain Ducasse, the three-starred Michelin chef, declared: "It is truly amazing what The FCI accomplishes with their students in as little as six months. It is the equivalent of years of a traditional apprenticeship." Like all our students, you'll be amazed by what you achieve in just six months by day or nine months by night. The reason is our innovative curriculum, and the Total ImmersionSM method of training we use to sear each carefully planned lesson into your permanent repertoire. It's all about personal attention, instant feedback, hands-on repetition, and inspiring reinforcement. Which is why anyone with a passion for cooking can learn the techniques and build the confidence that transforms them into a skilled chef any fine restaurant would love to hire. Thousands of students have succeeded using this method, including many with no prior professional culinary experience. It works, and it will work for you.
Q: Do your career programs include internships?
A: We encourage our students who have completed Level I of the Culinary Program, Unit 5 of the Pastry program, or 6-weeks of the bread program to do a voluntary internship for at least 6 weeks, and preferably, 2 to 3 months. Not only can such internships be a fun and integral part of your culinary education, they often lead to job offers. We've helped students get internships at restaurants, caterers, bakeries and specialty cake companies, magazines, television, chocolate companies, wine stores/wine departments at restaurants, PR firms, cheese making, and other culinary businesses. In a city where mere excellence is a price of entry, the internship experience is demanding, satisfying and validating.
In addition to these voluntary internship opportunities, all advanced-level students in our career culinary program receive real-world, center stage experience at our Zagat- and Michelin-rated restaurant, L'Ecole. Rotating through all six stations, they prepare meals in a fast-paced, real world environment for the savviest and most sophisticated customers in the world. As a student in our pastry program you can participate in our "Afternoons/Evenings of Dessert" where you invite friends and family to join you at our International Culinary Theatre to sample your latest creations. Your work is rated and judged by the attendees, giving you valuable and constructive feedback.
Q: Is an education at The FCI considered a good value?
A: Our reputation as one of the most prestigious culinary schools in the world wasn't built on the principles of cutting corners or nickel-and-diming. We've always maintained that if we're training chefs to work in the finest restaurants, they must have the best of everything. And you do.
For example, we hire only the most qualified, skilled Chef-Instructors, and seek out only world-class visiting lecturers. This helps you get the best possible culinary arts training in the shortest appropriate time.
We're also unique among culinary schools in that we use the same purveyors as four-star New York City restaurants. That means the same foie gras and Chilean sea bass that are cooked by the chefs at Le Cirque or Restaurant Daniel are cooked by our students from the first day of class. We believe that our students' palates must be trained in discerning the very best in order to be the best.
Lastly, we don't send our culinary students off to externships at local restaurants where their newly learned skills are wasted in a backroom for six weeks while they prep vegetables or separate eggs all day. Instead, we've built our own restaurant, L'Ecole, where our expert chefs oversee our advanced level culinary students as they prepare dishes for our discriminating restaurant guests. The quality of training is so high, this restaurant earns accolades and a high Zagat- and Michelin-rating while competing with many of the world's top restaurants.
Clearly, it all adds up to a culinary education many consider the best value in the industry.
Q: Do you offer financial aid?
A: Yes. We offer scholarships, loans, and grants. After speaking to a financial aid advisor, most applicants are amazed at the various kinds of aid available and how affordable culinary programs at The FCI can be. We'll be happy to make things as easy as possible by walking you through every step of the process-just contact our financial aid office or click here to learn more about financial aid opportunities.
Q: How does The FCI compare to other culinary institutes?
A: A better question is: How do we differ from other culinary institutes?
We're honored to have an abundance of culinary stars in our kitchens. What other cooking school in the world can boast master chefs such as Alain Sailhac, Jacques Pépin, André Soltner, and Jacques Torres as faculty?
Then there's our location - both the city itself and the neighborhood we call home. Being in New York helps us attract renowned international chefs, restaurateurs, and food experts who perform over 200 demonstrations a year in our International Culinary Theater. And within Manhattan, The FCI is situated in the heart of SoHo, one of the most popular and dynamic neighborhoods in New York. It's on the pulse of the culinary world and the city's freshest restaurant scene. Walk out our front door and you're literally steps away from the bounty of Chinatown, Little Italy, and several of the city's best farmers' markets. You'll see why this is the neighborhood where many of the greats in the culinary world live, shop, and work.
Pulling all this together for you are our dynamic and accomplished Chef-Instructors, and we've spared no expense to give them the finest tools and top equipment. For our recent $7 million renovation, we consulted them, as well as our students and kitchen architects, before creating our incredible facilities. They're spacious, abundantly appointed, and designed especially for hands-on instruction in small classes for optimal learning.
Another key difference? When courses are finished at other schools, culinary students are turned over to restaurants or bakeries to fulfill an externship requirement. Unfortunately, most of these students are surprised to find they have to check their newly acquired culinary skills at the kitchen door. They end up sequestered in a back room somewhere spending week after week skimming stock or weighing flour. We don't consider that learning. At The FCI, culinary students cook in a professional restaurant for 20 weeks as part of their course work. L'Ecole, our highly regarded restaurant, offers our higher level culinary students the unique opportunity to rotate through all the stations of a kitchen. They train under the watchful eye of Chef-Instructors and perfect their art in the heat of the moment at a highly rated city restaurant. That's our idea of learning.
Of course, once our students graduate we do everything in our power to place them in one of the thousands of jobs that cross our desks every year -- that is, if they haven't already been snatched up by a top restaurant. But it's not just new graduates we help get jobs. We're deeply committed to keeping our alumni in jobs that satisfy them throughout their entire career. Whenever past graduates want to change positions or seek more training (in Europe, perhaps), we offer services such as individual placement assistance, résumé writing workshops, continuing education and professional development programs, and international networking opportunities to keep their skills sharp and their careers on track.
Q: When are your programs offered?
A: Culinary Arts day classes are offered Monday through Friday from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm for 6 months.
Culinary Arts evening classes are offered Monday, Wednesday, and Friday or Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from 5:45 pm to 10:45 pm for 9 months.
Pastry Arts day classes are offered Monday through Friday from 8:30 am to 2:30 pm for 6 months.
Pastry Arts afternoon classes are offered Tuesday and Thursday from 3:30 pm to 8:30 pm or Saturday from 9 am to 2 pm for 9 months.
Pastry Arts evening classes are offered on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5:30 pm to 10:30 pm for 9 months.
Please see our individual program pages for specific career programs and class schedule information.
Q: How many students are in a class?
A: There's an average student-to-teacher ratio of 12:1 or less in all our programs. And each student has plenty of room to train. Our kitchens have been strategically designed to accommodate up to 24 students comfortably, and each classroom is led by two Chef-Instructors. So the training is always personal, and the feedback, immediate.
Q: Is previous culinary or pastry arts experience necessary?
A: Many of our successful grads had it when they began, but some didn't. The fact is the only thing you need is a passion for food and a high school diploma. We give all students a thorough grounding in the basics-whether it's how to stand at the chopping block and hold a knife in our culinary program or measuring basics in our pastry program. So no matter your level of experience coming in, you can be assured you'll graduate ready to work in some of the world's finest restaurants or in a range of other culinary professions.
Q: Does The FCI offer programs for people who are serious about food but don't want a career in the industry?
A: We offer specially designed courses for the serious amateur - those people who are happy in their current career but still want to explore their passion for food. In La Technique, which The New York Times has dubbed the "boot-camp of cooking," students get a full and thorough grounding in the 250 fundamental competencies of Western cooking - everything from knife skills and stock-making to food preservation and kitchen ordering. In Essentials of Pastry, students master the art of pastry making, including cake and tart-making, cold and hot desserts, cookies, plated desserts, and petit fours. We also offer a one-week intensive bread course that teaches bakers-in-training how to mix, shape, proof, and score traditional French, Italian, and Middle-European breads. Click here to learn more about our Amateur Programs.
Q: Is there a job-placement program?
A: The FCI receives over 2,000 requests for jobs each year from our network of restaurateurs, bakery owners, caterers, magazine, and newspaper editors. These are the decision makers in virtually every segment of the food industry around the world, and they know what they're getting when they hire a grad from The FCI. We've placed alumni in important establishments such as The Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs, London's tony Le Gavroche restaurant, and the lavish food emporium Fauchon in Paris. Media innovators, including the award-winning magazine Saveur and Food Network, the phenomenally successful food cable station, have also snatched our graduates up.
We also offer job-placement assistance, résumé writing workshops, continuing education and professional development programs, and special alumni events at The FCI that provide additional networking opportunities. And we publish job opportunities in a weekly Job Menu that's posted at the school and sent to alumni via e-mail. No other culinary school anywhere does so much for you.
Q: What are the chef and pastry chef job prospects after graduation?
A: The culinary industry is the fourth largest in terms of employment numbers. According to the New York Restaurant Association, there are 389,000 jobs in the restaurant trade in New York State alone. And the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that restaurant-industry employment will continue to rise significantly during the next 10 years. And that's not including the overwhelming demand for private and corporate chefs for families, celebrities, and small and large businesses-all of whom want the best-trained chefs available. Once you've earned credentials from The FCI, you'll find that doors will always be open wide for you, in every area of the culinary world.
Q: What would be the age range of my fellow students?
A: Students ages run the gamut; you'll find 18-year-old high-school graduates busily working alongside 60-year-old restaurant owners. The varying ages and levels of experience make for a rich educational experience. Passion and enthusiasm are the common threads of this close-knit school community.
Q: What's the ratio of male to female students?
A: Culinary arts programs are approximately 55 percent male and 45 percent female. Pastry arts classes, approximately 60 percent female and 40 percent male. Artisan bread baking classes are evenly divided.
Q: Do you offer student housing?
A: The French Culinary Institute has secure, affordable student housing in modern apartments on Roosevelt Island on the East River, and Brooklyn Heights in Brooklyn. Our Roosevelt Island apartments, just a short commute from campus, are in the shadow of the world famous skyline. The apartments are fully furnished and offer 24-hour security.
The EHS Clark Residences in Brooklyn Heights offer many luxury amenities. 24/7 security and state of the art surveillance, a lounge area for socializing with wide screen TV, quiet study areas, a computer center, laundry facilities, an ATM and more. Each unit has its own central air and heat, a microwave, high speed internet, color TV, and DVD player. Our staff can also provide information on other housing options in the city. Please note, housing is available on a first come, first serve basis so be sure to contact us right away. Click here to learn more.
Q: How does the application process work?
A: The process is simple, and you can even apply here. It begins when you submit an application and a non-refundable $100 fee (applicable to your deposit if you enroll). The application must include a work résumé plus a 150-word essay describing why you're interested in the food industry and, specifically, The French Culinary Institute. Once our admission office receives your completed application, you'll be notified of your acceptance within days. At that point, you'll submit a $400 tuition deposit to secure your place in class; medical certification; a high-school diploma, a general-equivalency diploma, or a foreign equivalent; two passport-size photographs; and your uniform order.
