The Culinary Institute of America

The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) is a well known culinary school. It is a private non-for-profit college founded in 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut, as a vocational school training veterans from the Second World War. Within the American Culinary Federation, CIA has some of the greatest numbers of Certified Master Chefs on its staff. CIA offers associate and bachelor’s degrees.

In order to get into CIA, applicants must have at least six months of experience in a professional kitchen excluding the fast food industry, or one year in a high school culinary arts programme, or a term of college work in cooking and baking classes. Students will learn about farm-to-table cooking, advanced wine, beverage and hospitality, Latin cuisines, advanced concepts in baking and pastry, Asian cuisines and a fifteen-week intrapreneurship. Accelerated classes require a minimum of four years of experience in food service and do not include the entrepreneurship.

The school is based in New York, California, Texas and Singapore. Its main campus is in Hyde Park, New York. It runs four public restaurants - French, Americas, and Italian, and a bakery-cafe. The campus in Saint Helena, California, opened in 1995, operates the Wine Spectator Greystone Restaurant, focusing on local and seasonal ingredients, a bakery-cafe and the American Food Studies involving farm-to-table cooking. In addition, the Californian branch runs The Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies, a programme designed for wine professionals. The San Antonio campus in Texas has its own Nao Latin Gastro Bar serving Latin American food with a contemporary twist. 

The Singapore school specifically targets graduates from Singapore based polytechnic institutes.

Some famous alumni include American chef, restaurateur and expert in molecular gastronomy Grant Achatz, Cat Cora - American chef known fore her featuring in the Food Network television as an “Iron Chef” and co-host of Around the World in 80 Plates on Bravo, American chefs, authors, and TV personalities Anthony Michael Bourdain and Anne W. Burrell, Annabel Langbein - a New Zealand celebrity cook, food writer and publisher and Michael Mina - an Egypt-born American celebrity chef, cookbook author and restaurateur.