Don't Go to Culinary School

Back in 2014, three-and-a-half years into my undergraduate degree at Texas A&M University, I made the decision that I didn’t really want to go to law school like I thought I did. Since I was a kid I always loved food and cooking but I never thought about trying to make a career out of it because, like many people, I thought that working with your hands was seen as something to look down on.

Working in a restaurant is not the “white collar” job that our society has deemed to be an indication of success. When I finally came to realize how classist and stupid this train of thought was, I chose to finish my degree with the intent on going to culinary school upon my graduation, but I was going to be smart about it. Before doing a complete 180 in my career path, I needed to prove to myself that I could cut it in the restaurant world.

Celebrity chefs had brought the intensity of the restaurant setting to main stream audiences with shows like Kitchen Nightmares, Hell’s Kitchen, and Restaurant Impossible among many others. These programs showed all of us that working in a restaurant is hard work, and before I invested upwards of $50,000 for a culinary degree, I better be positive I can survive working in a professional kitchen first.

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I vividly remember my first job at Blackwater Draw, a now closed brewpub that was located in the heart of Northgate, one of the most popular areas in College Station. On weekends (and oftentimes even on weeknights), countless Aggies (A&M students) packed the bars that made that part of town so popular.

With absolutely no restaurant experience whatsoever, the owners and Head Chef Will took a chance on me. I started my way at the bottom, relegated mostly to dish duty and prep for the first two weeks before working my way into the kitchen whenever it was slow enough for me to learn the system without becoming overwhelmed.

Will was a good mentor and someone who definitely was not a fan of the idea of culinary school, suggesting that it was a waste of money.

“Culinary school is only a waste of money if I plan to work in brewpubs my whole life” I thought to myself, but I had bigger dreams. I wanted to be the chef of fine dining restaurants. Maybe I could even earn a Michelin Star or two or three! In order to accomplish that goal I HAD to go to culinary school to learn the secrets of becoming a great chef.

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After a few months on the job at Blackwater, I felt that I needed to get some fine dining experience under my belt before fully committing to the idea of going to culinary school. I took a second job at Christopher’s World Grille, one of the very few fine dining restaurants in town where I was put on the appetizer station.

One of the sous chefs there was a lovable crank from Brooklyn named John who took a liking to me and took me under his wing. He would frequently pull me off the line to help him on large catering events and banquets where I would learn a lot about timing as well as cooking for large groups. John, like Will, did not believe in going to culinary school and said something to me which has stuck with me to this day: “Why would you pay money to have someone teach you how to cook when you can work at a restaurant and get paid to learn how to cook.”

One of the other benefits I had of working with John was on how to prepare the food which is then served in a restaurant. This may seem like common sense, but the work done off the line is usually the most crucial. Getting this part down is where a lot of the real chef work comes into play.

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Fast forward a few years and a move to Boston later and I am offered my first sous chef position at Bistro du Midi where by then I had completely given up on the idea of going to culinary school. Being in a big city I got to know a lot of people with various different experiences working in restaurants. I met people who had been in the industry longer than I had been alive, people that had just started, people who went to culinary school, people who didn’t, and all other sorts of characters you can imagine. A kitchen is a true hodgepodge of people from all walks of life.

Since becoming a chef in my own right, I have been in charge of hiring people with different resumes and wide ranges of qualifications. After hiring and having worked with numerous people that have attended culinary school, I feel confident in saying that 9 out of 10 culinary school graduates should have maybe of pursued other careers.

Culinary school is a great place to learn the basics and to become book smart. By attending one of the numerous culinary academies and institutes around the country, you will learn fancy terms like mise en place, chiffonade, and julliene, you’ll learn what the maillard reaction is and that a medium rare steak has an internal temperature between 130º-135ºF among many, many other things.

You can learn a lot in culinary school, but certain, crucial aspects of being a chef are things that you can’t teach. Culinary school can’t teach you how to multitask. You know that a medium rare steak is 130ºF? Great! Do you know how to cook a steak medium rare without pulling out a thermometer? Can you cook eight medium rare steaks right now while simultaneously cooking two mediums, and three well dones WHILE searing off six duck breasts? No? Well, Miguel can and he doesn’t have a $50,000 piece of paper from the culinary school of your choice.

Culinary schools, like most institutions of higher learning, have become “pay for your diploma” institutions. “If you keep paying your inflated tuition we will do everything in our power, including lowering the standards of what it takes to graduate, to make sure you walk across that stage and get your diploma, just make sure to keep writing checks out to us at the beginning of the semester.”

Oh, and that 1 culinary school graduate out of 10 that is actually worth their salt? Those are the kind of people that would have been able to make it in the industry without the culinary degree anyways.

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Another thing culinary school simply can’t teach you is creativity. Forgive me for sounding pretentious, but cooking is an art, and in my opinion it’s the ultimate art form because it can be received with most of, if not all, the five senses: the mouth feel - touch, the flavor - taste, how it looks on the plate - sight, the aroma of the dish - smell, and lastly, tell me there is nothing more tantalizing than the sizzle of a tray of fajitas hitting your table - sound.

In the same way you can teach an artist how to paint and a writer how to write, you can teach someone how to cook but it’s much more difficult to teach them how to create something of their own. In that same token, if you can learn the technique in a restaurant, why are you going to pay someone to teach you it in a school. Like Anthony Bourdain once said, “Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.”

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Don’t just take my word for it, some of the most successful chefs and restauranteurs in the world like Gordon Ramsay and Thomas Keller all forewent going to culinary school.

If you are truly adamant about going to school in order to possibly help your career, I would recommend getting an associate’s degree in something like Restaurant and Hotel Management to teach you the business side of running your own restaurant but even that I feel is something you typically learn on the job.

My best piece of advice is to just do what I did is to get a job in a restaurant kitchen. Put in the hours. Work your way up. There will be literal blood, sweat, and plenty of tears. This is a stressful but incredibly rewarding career.

Work for chefs who love food and are still excited by it. Chefs are a passionate bunch and they get excited by seeing the passion in others who share their interest, so seek out those who are willing to take you under their wing. Learn as much as you can from them and ask them everything: “What are you doing,” “What is that,” and “Can you show me how to do that?” should become common phrases in your vocabulary.

Finally, at the end of the day, if you realize the restaurant world just isn’t for you, you’ll have saved yourself $50,000 and can invest that money towards another career path.