By Dan Schlossberg
ConsumerAffairs.com
November 16, 2005
To those who think restaurants require experience, expertise, and clever packaging, the CIA is a revelation.
No, it's not the fly-by-night secret society of faceless operatives and ruthless reputation. This CIA is the Culinary Institute of America, where 21st century technology blends with time-tested methods of food preparation and service. Many of the world's most respected chefs started there.
Perched on a 150-acre tract high above the Hudson in Dutchess County, New York, the CIA is north of Poughkeepsie, south of Franklin Roosevelt's Hyde Park home, and light years from anything else on the planet. Why else would thousands of people make reservations months in advance and drive many hours to dine on meals prepared by rookie chefs and served by equally inexperienced waiters?
The only residential college in the world devoted entirely to culinary education, it began as the New Haven Restaurant Institute in 1946. The CIA assumed its current name in 1951 and location in 1972. Facilities include kitchens, bakeshops, and restaurants staffed by students learning their future trade.
Far from ordinary waiters and waitresses, Culinary Institute students are serious in private but pleasant, efficient, and accommodating in public. Both the quality of service and the gourmet fare -- prepared by chefs in training -- show the benefits of close scrutiny by veteran instructors.
The CIA routinely hosts 6,000 working professionals in continuing education, 2,300 students, 1,600 people in adult-education progams, and 145 chefs and instructors from more than a dozen countries.
All U.S. restaurants could take lessons from the CIA's Fab Four: the American Bounty, Escoffier, Caterina de Medici, and St. Andrew's Cafe.
The de Medici legacy is obvious to any restaurant-goer: the Italian-born Queen of France introduced the fork to the French court at a 1535 banquet in Fontainebleau.
Further information: Culinary Institute of America, 1946 Campus Drive, Hyde Park, NY 12538-1499 (Tel. 845-471-6608 for restaurant reservations).
---Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is president of the North American Travel Journalists Association, and a frequent contributor to AAA Traveler and USAirways Magazine.
