Cooking Programs at The Italian Culinary Academy

The Italian Culinary Academy and its sister school, The French Culinary Institute, constitute The International Culinary Center in New York. Students who register with the Italian Culinary Academy sign up for a unique cooking experience as they can get to practice their trade in both New York City and Parma, Italy.

School Overview

History of the School

The International Culinary Center in Soho, New York, has been offering world-class culinary courses to international students for over twenty years although the Italian Culinary Academy is a fairly recent addition to its hallowed halls. The ICA shares space with the world renowned French Culinary Institute as well as the new Recreational Cooking Division.

Contact Details

The Italian Culinary Academy is located at 462 Broadway, New York, NY 10013 (tel: 888-FCI-CHEF and website: http://www.italianculinaryacademy.com/).

Facilities and Amenities

At the ICA, students train in a custom-made designer Italian kitchen, complete with a red-bricked pizza oven and a chef's station made from Italian marble, and work with only the best stainless steel equipment. The ICA also offers Open House Receptions, including their innovative online open-houses, that invite prospective students to learn more about their school. Here prospective students are given the chance to chat with instructors, ask any questions that they may have and also inquire about the academy's numerous financial aid programs. They are also encouraged to take a tour of the school's facilities and to have a meal at the ICC's resident Zagat-rated on-campus restaurant, L'ecole.

In an attempt to ensure that no student is turned away for financial reasons, the ICA also offers prospective students an array of financial aid and scholarship options. The available financial aid programs include the Career Training Loan, which can finance the costs of an entire course, the Smart Options Loan, which does away with the sometimes overwhelming capitalized interest costs, and the NJCLASS Loan, which has been developed specifically for New Jersey residents and that can be used in combination with other scholarships and financial aid programs. Available scholarships include:

1. The $5,000 Italian Trade Commission Scholarship Fund (there are 3 of them and they apply to the Italian Culinary Experience program only); and
   
2. The $5,000 Italian Culinary Experience Scholarship (also applicable only to the Italian Culinary Experience program).

Academic Programs

The ICA trains its students through the trade-marked Total Immersion technique where students are constantly exposed to all things Italian including the Italian language, the Italian culture and, of course, the Italian cooking styles. Students are taught traditional cooking methods and styles from all over Italy and no one regional style is preferred above the rest. The ICA offers two course programs: the 29-week Italian Culinary Experience where students train in both NYC and Italy, and the 8-week Essentials of Italian Cooking program.

Summary of Courses Offered

Italian Culinary Experience

This course is unique in that it offers students the opportunity to train at both the ICA's New York location and The ALMA International School of Italian Cuisine in Parma, Italy. Apart of the abundance of Italian cooking skills and techniques that this course passes on to its students, it also features lessons in the Italian language and culture as well as an internship in the kitchens of one of the best restaurants in Italy. Students are offered instruction in both the Northern Italian and Southern Italian cooking styles and will spend 10 weeks at ICA in New York before moving on to spend 9 weeks at ALMA and their facilities in the Ducal Palace of Colorno. A further 9 weeks will be spent working the internship before students return to ALMA and take their final examinations.

The courses offered on campus in New York City consist of the following:

1. Introduction to Italian Cooking;
   
2. Italian Cheeses and Antipasti;
   
3. Stocks and Sauces;
   
4. Pasta: Dried, Fresh and Filled;
   
5. Pizza and Flatbreads;
   
6. Fish;
   
7. Meats;
   
8. Contorni (side dishes): Vegetables, Greens and Salads;
   
9. Italian Desserts; and
   
10. New York City Practical Review and Final Examination.
    

 

The courses offered at the ALMA International School of Italian Cuisine consist of:

1. The History of Italian Cuisine;
   
2. A Guest Chef Demonstration;
   
3. Products and Raw Materials;
   
4. Cooking Practice and Recipes;
   
5. Wines;
   
6. Pastry;
   
7. On-site Visits (comprising visits to production facilities, museums, farms and vineyards to research the history and observe the manufacture of such foodstuffs as truffles, Parma ham, Chianti wines, olive oil and Balsamic vinegar);
   
8. On-stage training (highly effective for teaching several extremely specific regional cooking techniques); and
   
9. ALMA Final Practical Examination and Review.
   This program is the premier program of its kind available world wide and comes highly recommended by students from all over the globe who come to New York specifically to attend these ICA NYC classes.

Essentials of Italian Cooking

This 8-week course program offers students convenient and flexible class times as well as two possible scheduling options to choose from, of which one consists of the Mondays and Wednesday 5.30pm through 10.30pm classes. Students will graduate from this course with a basic knowledge in the preparation and creation of all types of Italian cuisine including Italian pastas and breads, traditional desserts and meat, poultry and fish dishes. Each student is assigned their own personal work station in the ICA's fully equipped and custom-designed authentic Italian kitchen and their participation in the extremely practical courses is overseen by the academy's highly qualified chef-instructors. The individual courses that form part of the program include:

1. Introduction to the Professional Kitchen and Dried Pasta;
   
2. Cheese, Salumi, Specialty Items, Pizza and Calzone;
   
3. Vegetable, Seafood and Meat Antipasti;
   
4. Stocks, Sauces and Filled Pasta;
   
5. Soups and Grains; and
   
6. Beans, Potatoes and Desserts.

Conclusion

It is possible to get a taste of authentic Italy in cosmopolitan New York City - especially when the classes are taught in Italy itself - and students from around the world are not wrong when they say that this is one of the greatest Italian cooking schools of all time.