Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Re: Addresses for Culinary Institutes?
From: Pete Cottrell 	pete@cs.umd.edu  

	You should be able to find ads for various schools in the backs
of different cooking magazines; the best collection of ads I found was 
in the back of Bon Appetit. 
	I suggest you get the school brochures, and examine the program
to determine its value to you. Some schools are less than two years
and offer some kind of certificate of achievement; others have longer
programs of 2 or more years and are accredited to offer Associate Arts
degrees or even a Bachelors. In the longer programs, they are probably 
going to have a greater amount of non-kitchen learning, where you're
learning hotel/restaurant management besides the culinary arts.
	One sous-chef I talked to described the top three US schools
(in no particular order) as The Culinary Institute of America 
(NY, 1-800-CULINARY), the California Culinary Academy (1-800-BAY-CHEF),
and the New England Culinary Institute (VT, 1-802-223-6324, note that this
is not a toll-free number). I don't know enough to rate these schools
myself, but I certainly hear about them. Other schools I've heard mentioned
are:
	Western Culinary Institute (Or, 1-800-666-0312)
	Johnson & Wales University (several locations, 1-800-BE-A-CHEF)
	L'Academie De Cuisine (MD, 1-800-664-CHEF)
	Baltimore International Culinary College (MD, 1-800-624-9926)
	Scottsdale Culinary Institute (AZ, 1-800-848-2433)
	Peter Kump's New York Cooking School (various locs., 1-800-522-4610)

	There are many other schools to choose from besides these. You 
might want to purchase the Shaw Guide to Cooking Schools, which is updated
each year (1-800-247-6553 for phone orders).
	Be prepared to spend some bucks; I haven't done an exhaustive study,
but based on the few I checked on, I'd say that for many of these schools,
you'll pay $12,000-15,000 or more per year. If you have a chance, visiting
the school to check it out is a good idea.
	I have no connection with any of the schools I mentioned; I just
happened to have looked at this recently, and I hope that the numbers I
pulled out of the magazines have been typed in correctly. Good luck in
your choice.