For reasons that are worthy of a Pit thread, I find myself currently unemployed. I worry that I’ll be on an employed / unemployed rollercoaster for a long time and I don’t want that.
I have been thinking of going to cooking school and was wondering if any Dopers had done the same? What can / should I expect? What were you expecting that did or did not come to pass? What sort of questions should I have in mind when I go in for an orientation? FTR, this school offers Le Cordon Bleu programs.
I can’t tell you what to expect once you get to class, but I can tell you that my son applied to a couple and it is EXPENSIVE.
I assume they will go over technique, what types of flavors compliment others, nutrition, stuff like that. Good luck!!
There’s a lot more to cooking school than just cooking. And as mentioned above, it can be expensive. Are you looking to go into the restaurant business in the future? Do you want to manage/own a restaurant? Or do you want to be a chef? Or do you have no idea how to cook? I have worked in restaurants for a long time, started off as a cook and recently left the business to be a stay at home dad, but as a manager. Never went to school for any of it. There is a lot that can be learned on the job.
But I will give you one piece of advice. The correct answer is always, “wash your hands”.
Let me start by saying at some point I probably would like to own my own restaurant. I would like to be a chef, and not just a guy cooking at Red Lobster or whatever. My actual cooking skills are all over the map - I can’t bake a potato to save my life, but I am pretty good with Risotto. To me the main thing seems to be that people enjoy eating what I have made, and I enjoy eating what I’ve made.
What do you use? My hands get all dryand sore when I wash them all the time during cooking.
I haven’t found anything. I always try to stock an antibacterial soap that has some moisturizing properties. I hate lotion and all that. Mostly, I just have dry, sore hands.
Very cool, and good luck to you with all that. Someday, I hope to open my own place and bring these west coast heathens a real NY pizza, not the crap they call pizza here. But that’s because I really enjoyed my years in a pizza place. Of course I would also serve other types of authentic Italian food. And gain the 50lbs I lost right back. That is the worst part about restaurant work.
It’s debatable whether cooking school is actually worth the price in the real world. A better route might be to start apprenticing and work your way up the chain instead. You get paid rather than paying and you gain valuable experience and contacts but you don’t get as broad or deep an education which can hurt you later down the line.
Read Kitchen Confidential. Restaurants are messy, unsavory, failure-prone businesses and the enthusiast owner is the #1 losers.
The kinds of restaurants that look for cooking school creds are the same ones that aren’t going to hire someone off the bat. Get a job as a prep cook or even as waitstaff and make yourself indispensable and learn all you can. Meanwhile, you can brush up on your Spanish. You will need to know Spanish if you want to work in the business. Spend your time off talking to the owners of similar restaurants to the kind you want to open. Try to learn the business stuff behind the place you work.
Then, why not just open a restaurant if thats what you want to do? It’s a big-ass gamble, but cooking school isn’t going to change that. Nobody is going to go to your pizza place because you have a diploma- especially the somewhat boring 1950’s American-French stuff they largely still teach in cooking school. For someone with your plans, it’s most likely going to be a waste of money.
While the idea of going back to school (where you don’t have to worry about what your doing, don’t have to think too much about money until the loan bills come, don’t have to answer uncomfortable questions) is very appealing to the un(der)employed, it’s not always a great idea.
I did forget that one important thing, Spanish. it doesn’t seem to matter where you are, the vast majority of kitchen help seems to speak Spanish. It is very helpful. Working in a restaurant of any sort while in school is another good way to maximize your learning. I know many servers, cooks, etc who were also going to school. Nothing like a practical application for classroom lessons.
I don’t know anything about the restaurant business, but if you’re thinking about
going to one of those schools that advertise on TV, I’d strongly advise against it. They are
very expensive and they aren’t recognized nearly as widely as they would have you
believe. They often claim to be accredited, but if you check it’s not true. One of their
biggest attractions is that you can learn a trade in a few months, think about it, if it
was that easy why would real, legitimate schools and apprenticeship programs exist?
There’s got to be a better way to learn the business. Perhaps a local community
college has related courses you could take.
Huh? The OP made no mention of wanting to open a restaurant. And Kitchen Confidential only describes a specific type of kitchen. Generalising across all kitchens is tricky. I think, if you are truely talented and have a decent chance of reaching the top levels of cooking, then culinary school is still going to be a big plus. If you have a look at most of the big name chefs, the general career path has been culinary school, then floating around 3 - 4 of the top kitchens in the country, a 1 - 2 year stage in europe, returning as a sous chef at a top restaurant and then eventually opening up their own place. However, keep in mind that this is the equivilant of the Pro Leagues and only a very few make it.
If your happy being a line chef for the rest of your life, then culinary school is largely worthless. However, Le Cordon Bleu is a reputable program and you’ll probably get a good education out of it. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll be scammed in any way.
The OP did mention it in his second post.
Most of the successful restaurant owners I’ve ever seen didn’t go to school for cooking. They learn the business end of it and leave the cooking to others. There are, of course, the handful of very high-end guys who do, but successful restaurants are more than just good food (and frequently everything BUT good food!). 
That’s right, and that’s why many cooking schools have business classes. They’ll teach you various ways to cook the books (Thai, French, Tex-Mex, Sicilian, Indian, and Morrocan.)
I guess that I should clarify a few things. First, I do want to own a restaurant, but not next year and probably not for 10 years, give or take. That would give me some time to work in a couple of restaurants and get an idea of what owning arestaurant would be like. Second, starting as a bus boy and working up in a restaurant is a good idea. It would have been a great idea 15 years ago when I was in my early 20’s and not in my late 30’s. Third, the progam that I would be learning is pretty well known and isn’t from a TV ad with other options like TV & VCR repair.
In a sense I am looking at this as a sort of vocational school - I get edumacated in a field that there will always have jobs. It is a creative release, and I need something like that since I have no artistic or musical ability. Once you have a reputation as a good chef, then the options are almost unlimited and they aren’t all related to a restaurant only.
I’m emailing a friend of mine who went to cooking school a few years ago and he was proably a couple of years older than I am now.