Like all incarnations of modern art and culture, the culinary arts never stop evolving, breaking new boundaries, and unveiling new standards of creativity and excellence. As a student at The FCI you're always at the forefront of this vibrant industry. And our expanded culinary arts curriculum, based on the classic French techniques that form the basis for all western cuisine, will keep you there. Here's how:

In just months, you learn what other schools take years to teach.
With our innovative curriculum and proven Total Immersion^SM method of training, it takes just 6 months by day, or 9 if you train at night, to learn what would take years to learn at other schools. Thousands of students have succeeded using this method, including many with no prior professional culinary experience. It's all about personal attention, instant feedback, hands-on repetition, and inspiring reinforcement so that each carefully planned lesson becomes an instinctive part of your permanent repertoire. It works, and it will work for you. And yes, you do it all in the heart and soul of the culinary world, on our campus in SoHo, New York City.

It's not just about learning French cooking.
Our Classic Culinary Arts Program doesn't just teach you French cooking. It immerses you in the classic French techniques that form the building blocks of all great western cuisine. Your instructors are passionate, inspiring culinary achievers and trendsetters who teach you up close and hands-on. Classes are intimate, averaging just 12 students per teacher. So you get the personal attention and support that really build your confidence and skills. Thanks to our Total Immersion^SM approach, the intensity of our training is matched only by the speed of your learning. Nothing else compares.

Learn real-world skills working in our award-winning restaurant.
As a student at The FCI, you won't be sent off to externships at local restaurants where your newly learned skills are wasted prepping vegetables or separating eggs all day. Instead, the last third of your training takes you straight to center stage, into the kitchen of our own award-winning, Zagat^® Guide- and Michelin^®-rated restaurant, L'Ecole. Our expert chefs oversee your work as you prepare dishes for our discriminating restaurant guests. The quality of training is so high, this restaurant competes with top restaurants everywhere. This is the unique, real world experience you'll only find at The French Culinary Institute.

You'll follow a curriculum designed by legends in the culinary world.
Our curriculum was designed by industry icons who also happen to be our esteemed Deans - Chef Jacques Pépin, "the Zen master of technique," Chef André Soltner, creator of spectacular dishes truly brilliant in their simplicity, and Chef Alain Sailhac, whose experience and reputation are respected worldwide. If you dream of achievement like theirs, you need a culinary school like ours.

 

Level I
Introduction to Basic Techniques
You'll come in with lots of passion and a little uncertainty. And on day one you begin the surprisingly fast evolution into a confident cook, beginning with an orientation to the kitchen environment, including personal hygiene and dressing. Food safety training is a major component of Level 1 and begins with an introduction to the ServSafe^® program curriculum for food protection. This is your first step towards a valuable HACCP certification-learning how various foods should be handled, from harvest or slaughter through production, and onto the dinner plate.
Your training continues as you move on to knife skills and classic cuts. Making stocks and sauces. Understanding seasoning. Studying and preparing various cuts of meat, fowl, seafood, and vegetables. Savory doughs and batters. Food storage and preserving. Learning to work in a brigade (team) to accomplish complex tasks quickly. Creating five classic pâtes, three classic appareils, and five classic crèmes.

Level 2
Techniques, Nutrition, and Kitchen Management
As the basics become second nature, you now start cooking the chef's meal. Every day, you'll work in one of the five kitchen departments: garde-manger, fish, meat, pastry, or catering. You learn the use, maintenance, and care of food service equipment; preparing classic creams, ice creams, sorbets, and batters; menu design and presentation; ingredient choice; pairing tastes and colors; using raw and cooked foods; an in-depth look at pasta, rice, and grains; and a primer on cheese making. Nutrition and food safety are stressed through additional ServSafe^® material, including the HACCP certification test - a valuable certification required in every professional kitchen. You'll learn the function of fats, proteins, and carbs in the body, and how to intelligently select and prepare ingredients to create the greatest nutritional value along with spectacular flavor.

Level 3
Discipline: Skills For Consistency and Their Refinement
The transition begins from beginner-level training to your midterm. At this level, you'll study wine fundamentals, gaining an appreciation of its nuances from grapes to label to bouquet. As you add new skills, you're also eliminating basic mistakes and consistently performing required recipes and techniques to high standards in tight deadlines. Teamwork is key to an efficient kitchen, so you work more closely with peers. You rotate through the stations of the classic French kitchen, creating team dishes for your Chef-Instructor to critique. Every dish is reviewed and discussed with a group to reinforce learning and help everyone prep for the upcoming midterm through consistency in execution.

Level 4
Buffet, Catering, and À la Carte Preparations
As your midterm proved, you're developing into a skilled and more confident cook as you move into the second half of your training. You prepare large volume à la carte preparations and butchery. You conceptualize and produce a top notch hot and cold buffet with charcuterie items, glazed cold preparations, and arrangements of vegetables and fruit. Everything from its nutritional value to color and arrangement to the traffic flow you create are evaluated. Working with your team you compose a weekly menu of ethnic cuisines, ordering the appropriate ingredients, and making and serving the meals to our staff, cafeteria-style. You rotate through the three production sectors of our main kitchen, helping prepare stocks, savory doughs, terrines/pâtés, butchering and other preparations. You study the technology and maintenance of food service equipment, including new sous-vide vacuum packaging techniques.

Level 5
Reality: Introduction to Restaurant Service
You are now truly on your way to becoming an excellent cook and transforming yourself into a chef. In this Level, you produce a regional French menu typical of a fine bistro or brasserie on a daily basis. As you work more independently at the stations of Garde Manger, Poissonnier, Saucier, and Patissier, you find yourself preparing dishes that exemplify traditional French culinary standards for outstanding appearance and taste. This is when you start putting all your skills together and really take off-thriving in the exhilarating, pressure-packed atmosphere of our acclaimed, on-campus restaurant, L'Ecole. Here, you get proficient and comfortable at every kitchen station, including, when possible, developing the daily specials, as part of the seasonal prix fixe menu. L'Ecole repeatedly earns a 24 rating from Zagat^® Survey and was recently among the elite recognized by the Michelin^® Guide - proof that our students can impress the savviest and most demanding customers in the world.

Level 6
Confidence, Control, and Creativity in Restaurant Reality
Now you prove your total command of all the fundamental cooking methods of Western cuisine, and produce a progressive menu that blends these classic techniques with current styles and emerging trends. You organize and run a station as Chef de Partie at L'Ecole, and are part of the team responsible for the daily menu. You demonstrate adaptability, flexibility, and grace under fire along with your mastery of cooking. You produce a final project menu in a booklet with introduction, recipes, illustrations, and food-costing summary. You will also write and create a complete menu without the support of textbooks or cookbooks. This is your chance to demonstrate your creativity, passion, and the intangibles that elevate truly special chefs above their peers.

For your final exam, you'll focus on two menu items selected at random from the course curriculum. A panel of distinguished professionals, who may include restaurateurs, four-star chefs, and award winning critics thoroughly evaluate every nuance of your finished dishes. At the same time, your Chef-Instructors monitor and grade your performance in the hopes of giving you your wings. They're all intensely demanding, but very fair. And if you can impress this group, you're on your way to success. Upon graduation, you're ready to step seamlessly into the finest commercial kitchens. You join the esteemed network of alumni from The French Culinary Institute. You are a chef.

 

Please note: If the start date that you are selecting is full, we will enroll you in the next available start date with that same schedule.

Schedule 1: Daytime Schedule
Monday - Friday, 9:00am - 3:00pm (6 Months)

Start	End	Cost
October 14, 2008	April 9, 2009	$ 40,850
November 11, 2008	May 8, 2009	$ 40,850
December 11, 2008	June 8, 2009	$ 40,850

Schedule 2: Evening Schedule
Monday, Wednesday, & Friday, 5:45pm - 10:45pm (9 Months) tr>

Start	End	Cost
August 27 , 2008	June 19, 2009	$ 33,750
October 15, 2008	August 7, 2009	$ 34,850
December 3, 2008	September 25, 2009	$ 34,850

Schedule 3: Evening Schedule
Tuesday, Thursday, & Saturday, 5:45pm - 10:45pm (9 months) tr>

Start	End	Cost
July 24, 2008	May 7, 2009	$ 29,750
September 9, 2008	June 23, 2009	$ 34,850
October 25, 2008	August 11, 2009	$ 34,850

Learning Mode: Hands-on - 469 hours. Theory - 131 hours.

 

Think all grads from our Culinary Program go on to become chefs in NYC? Only the ones who want to! Many head to other locales, or blaze new trails in careers as food writers and editors, stylists, tasters, catering and food retail professionals, and countless other lucrative positions in the expanding world of food. In less than a year, you can do the same with an education from The FCI. Click here to read just a few stories from some of these adventurous alums.