Find a Culinary Arts Training Program in Mississippi

Study cooking in Mississippi and you are academically immersed in culinary arts well outside those native to the region. While your cooking classes stress classic French, organized kitchen brigade teams and consummate European skills, the environment at large outside those four walls of stainless steel professional kitchen may remain quite classic down-home. This is the land of catfish, fried green tomatoes, and Mississippi Delta Blues music.

But that’s what a proper culinary education is all about, steeping yourself in academia as well as the edible world around you.

Choosing a Culinary School in Mississippi

Use the list of schools below to help you narrow your search for culinary arts, pastry arts or hospitality and restaurant management programs. The list includes 4-year schools, community colleges and even diploma-granting vocational and technical colleges.

Remember, your culinary education is ultimately focused on career so choose a school carefully, preferably one that offers ample tools with which to build or prepare for a good job:

• Internship opportunities
• Well-connected professional chef/instructors
• Student-run restaurant open to the public
• Well-equipped teaching kitchens and facilities
• Career planning assistance
• Job placement

Getting a Chef or Pastry Chef Job in Mississippi

Begin early in your education exploring various job markets in the state. Hattiesburg, Meridien, Biloxi, Jackson, and Gulfport all offer unique and innovative culinary niches. In fact well-known chef Robert St. John owns critically acclaimed restaurants in both Hattiesburg and Meridien. And Iron Chef Cat Cora began her culinary career in Jackson, where she was born and raised.

Consider forging marketable connections early as well. Membership in an active professional organization such as Hattiesburg or Mississippi Gulf Coast chapter of the American Culinary Federation, or the Southern Foodways Alliance, provides valuable networking and educational opportunities in the short-term and long-term.

Local food festivals that might also benefit you while you go to chef school in MS:

• World Catfish Festival
• Annual Crawfish Festival
• Natchez Food and Wine Festival
• Biloxi Seafood Festival
• Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium

Salaries for chefs working in Mississippi differ vastly based on location, position, experience and type of establishment. Average salary for all chefs in Hattiesburg is $50,000. Expect that you would likely be at least a sous chef, possibly executive chef, to earn this annual salary, with a required 2-3 years experience in a high volume kitchen in addition to mastery of certain supervisory or management duties.

Mississippi State Colleges, Community and Technical Colleges Offering Culinary, Restaurant Management, and/or Hospitality Degrees

Alcorn State University - Alcorn State
Coahoma Community College – Clarksdale
Copiah-Lincoln Community College – Wesson
Hinds Community College – Raymond
Meridian Community College – Meridian
Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College – Gulfport
Mississippi State University - Mississippi State
Mississippi University for Women – Columbus
Northeast Mississippi Community College – Booneville
Northwest Mississippi Community College – Senatobia
University of Southern Mississippi – Hattiesburg