The Cooks Who Can't Be Fired

By J.D. Reed

Few people are brave enough to risk a $3 haircut at the local barber college, and fewer still will opt for cut-rate root-canal work done by a student at a dental-school clinic. But a growing cadre of frugal gourmets from Montpelier to San Francisco is finding that meals in culinary-school restaurants can be very tasty deals indeed. A senior's sauce may need a soupcon of salt, or a nervous freshman waiter may tip over your water goblet, but for the most part, cooking-school eateries provide an interesting ambience and fine cuisine at half the price of the four-star restaurant just up the street.

At many of America's culinary colleges, where students pay as much as $19,000 for intense two-year courses, working in school-owned restaurants is required for graduation. Students may be taught everything from the psychology of hiring waiters to how to fold napkins or operate credit-card machines. But any would-be chef faces the final test preparing and serving food. The New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vt., has set up one of its restaurants, Tubbs, in a remodeled jail. Says co-founder John Dranow: "We've been influenced by the medical-school model. Students learn better by doing than by watching."

Such experiences also let students -- most of whom will be deluged with job offers from hotel chains and private restaurants upon graduation -- find out if they can stand the heat of the kitchen. Says Hy Eisenberg, manager of Audrey's, the Seekonk, Mass., eatery run by Johnson & Wales College, whose campus is in nearby Providence: "We try to make it like the real world, but of course the students can't get fired."

At most school restaurants the menus are elaborate, and many are classically French. The selections at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco reflect the curriculum. "Some things are sauteed, some poached, some braised," says Jean-Michel Jeudy, vice president for food and beverage. "We do not teach different recipes but different techniques." The accent is equally Gallic at L'Ecole, the aptly named restaurant of the French Culinary Institute in New York City's SoHo district. A recent $18 prix fixe lunch began with a light Roquefort souffle, which was followed by a moist salmon fillet in chervil sauce, a delicate lamb ragout and a green salad, and ended with a textbook-perfect creme brulee.

On the 83-acre Hyde Park, N.Y., campus of the Culinary Institute of America, known in food circles as "the other C.I.A.," the school runs four different restaurants. The 1,850 students learn regional U.S. dishes for the American Bounty Kitchen, Italian fare for the Caterina de Medici restaurant and health- conscious dinners for St. Andrew's Cafe.

The big C.I.A. draw, however, is the French cuisine in the Escoffier Room. The prix fixe $40 dinner features such classics as poached Dover sole stuffed with artichokes and tomatoes, and roasted rack of lamb on ratatouille. The 90- seat restaurant is sometimes booked three months in advance and boasts a four-star rating from the Mobil Travel Guide. Over a Kir Royale aperitif, bemused diners can enjoy a seminar in progress. On view in the glassed-in kitchen, a dozen nervous young chefs in tall toques bump into one another as they peel, poach and broil their way through the evening. At times it may seem that the students will never turn out a sumptuous meal, but fine dishes ranging from chilled duck borscht with ginger and melon to apricot mousse arrive on time, borne by hesitant student waiters.

The teaching restaurants are a good deal for both schools and patrons. Proceeds from the dining room of little Dumas Pere culinary school in Glenview, Ill., a Chicago suburb, help underwrite tuition costs for the 14 students. "The course value is $28,000," says school director Juan Snowden. "But the dining room profit helps knock almost $20,000 off that." Mark Erickson, the director of culinary education at C.I.A., speaks for many food educators, though, when he says, "We're more interested in students' getting good training in the restaurants than in making a good profit."

Regular patrons dote on the academic experience. L'Ecole diner Gilberte Roger, 40, a French citizen who works at the United Nations, on a recent visit found that her carrots were too hard and that they had an unreal "American look." But she enjoyed the rest of her meal so much that she vowed to return because the restaurant "deserved to be called French." The splendid menu at the Culinary School of Kendall College in Evanston, Ill., which serves specialties like roast quail stuffed with duck sausage and hazelnuts, receives raves from Stewart Koppel, a retired businessman, who drives three hours round trip with his wife Sadelle for dinner. Says he: "We keep coming back because the food is so good, and we get a kick out of the kids."

Despite occasionally receiving a low grade for an acrid vinaigrette or undercooked chicken, the students get kicks of their own. Henry Hirsch, 26, sometimes forgets that there is a world beyond the kitchen door as he sautes lamb over the hot stove at L'Ecole. "You get sick of the food back here," says Hirsch, a photographer who wants to open a restaurant of his own. "Then you look out into the dining room, and people are actually enjoying it." Especially at those prices.

With reporting by JoAnn Lum/New York, with other bureaus