As a way of learning more about food in San Diego, I thought it would be interesting to visit a local cooking school. The San Diego Culinary Institute seems to be the best of the schools in San Diego, so I visited them. Plus, they were having an open house, so that made it easier.

In 2000, following a merger, the California Culinary Academy closed their San Diego school in order to focus on their San Francisco program. Harold Meyberg, who had been the managing director of the school, started the San Diego Culinary Institute in the same building. Harold passed away in 2004 and his son now manages the school and Larry Lewis is the program director providing the culinary expertise. They are located in La Mesa just east of SDSU and south of the 8.

The three main points that they emphasized several times while I was there were that all the instructors are required to have had 5 or more years experience as executive chefs in fine dinning restaurants, their maximum class size is 16 people, and they focus on cooking techniques instead of recipes. Basically they emphasized that "experienced chefs teach cooking techniques to small classes". After a short talk by the admissions person, Yves Fournier, their pastry chef, showed us how to mold chocolate and make the little chocolate chef you see next to him in the photo below.

Next, Larry Lewis showed us how to cut various garnishes. Fun!

Their program is between 7 and 9 months and cost just over $20,000. They are definitely the high end of cooking schools in San Diego. Other culinary schools in San Diego include National Culinary School (also in La Mesa with a $10,000 program) and the San Diego Arts Institute in Mission Valley. Based on these websites, the Culinary Institute of San Diego seems to be the best school. The students I talked to during the tour were all really positive about the quality of the program.

Interestingly, when I walked through the main entrance, I saw a huge poster on the wall of people modeling chefs clothing. One of the models was Isabel Cruz, the owner of Cantina (and other restaurants) who I talked to about doing an internship with. I found out that she is also on the board of directors for the school.

There was no mention of organic, local, or grass-fed, but I really didn't expect that. Here are a few more photos of my visit.