Istituto Culinario: Are you ready to cook a masterpiece?

MANILA, Philippines - Are you ready to cook up a masterpiece? If not, allow Istituto Culinario to bring out the culinary maestro in you. This is a culinary school where the sumptuous and inspiring path to real culinary arts begins. The people behind Istituto Culinario see an oasis in their institution.

“Here, we nourish the body, we uplift the spirit and we inspire the minds of our students,” says Sara Soliven-de Guzman, the chief operating officer of the culinary school located at 57 Annapolis St. in Greenhills, San Juan. The school offers Culinary Arts and Food Management (first year to second year) and BS Food Management, major in Food Service (third year to fourth year).

Chef James Antolin, the international consultant of Istituto Culinario, adds that the school is committed to nurturing “true culinary maestros.” The school, he says, is bent on producing “professional, creative and passionate chefs” because Istituto’s curriculum is based on “classical cooking disciplines instilled through cutting-edge culinary instruction.”   

A sumptuous chicken dish that students prepared in class: Istituto Culinario is the only culinary school in the Philippines that has its own farm in Cavite. It is from this farm that the students harvest the produce that they use in school.

To say Istituto Culinario is both the newest and oldest culinary school in the country is highlighting the obvious. The school is the Philippines’ newest and most innovative institution that started operations in September last year, anchored on the strong foundations and solid reputation of the country’s first specialized school for the culinary arts — the OB Montessori College Culinary Institute, which Ambassador Preciosa Soliven established in 1995.

Because Preciosa is involved in Istituto Culinario as the founder and president, utmost integrity is observed in its operations. Her touch is felt in the hallways of the school — full of decorative art pieces that add to the conducive atmosphere for learning. (The reception area, walled with intricate art pieces, smells like a resort spa in Sicily or Tuscany.) The mother-daughter tandem of Preciosa and Sara, together with their distinguished chef-instructors, makes sure excellence is served up well.

Istituto Culinario may sound Italian but it is not. “However, we instill the disciplines and prepared environment built upon the foundations of the world-famous Italian education system developed by Maria Montessori,” Sara says.

Experience Through The Hands

“We make our students understand that to have proper kitchen knowledge is to build their character,” says James. “How do we achieve that? We allow them to experience culinary arts through their hands. That is only achievable if the students have longer hours in the kitchen.”

Students spend more time in the kitchen laboratories: To optimize the learning environment, Istituto Culinario observes a strict ratio of 15 students per teacher.

One class at Istituto Culinario accommodates a maximum of 15 students. Anything more than that, he says, will compromise the quality of knowledge transfer between the instructor and the students. As such, James is proud that their school allows one student to have at least five contact hours in the kitchen with the instructor. This system works to the advantage of a student because in other culinary schools, the lecture part takes longer than the actual exposure in the kitchen.

“At Istituto Culinario, everything passes through the senses of the students as taught to them by the instructor-chefs of the school. Everything here is experiential,” says Sara.

To prove her point, Sara shares the school’s “farm to plate” curriculum, one of the school’s many strengths. She says that Istituto Culinario is the first culinary college in the country that has its own farm in Alfonso, Cavite. “We are teaching our young chefs about the natural sources of food because it is important for them to experience it. They plant and they harvest in our farm. It is best that they have direct knowledge of organic produce, planting seasons, growth of plants, the harvest season. Early on they learn about quality control of food. Not only that, since we also have livestock in the farm, our students have live interactions with the animals — from birth to breeding to butchering. They learn to do all those things.”

The 20-hectare farm supplies the sustainable produce used by the students at Istituto Culinario.

From the farm in Cavite, the students bring their harvest to the four kitchen laboratories of the school in Greenhills to put to the test the important culinary knowledge they have learned from their instructors. By the way, the kitchen laboratories, spic-and-span as they are, are outfitted with top-of-the-line equipment carefully selected by the school to conform to world-class, five-star standards.

The students enjoy, too, at the demo laboratory with a state-of-the-art Rational Cooking Center and broadcast-quality camera. In this demo room, a Rational oven is the main fixture — the Rolls-Royce of oven technology. It’s actually a self-cleaning steamer-oven that can cook rice, roast pigs, fry chicken, and steam fish, among other functions. No wonder one unit costs about a million pesos. The school owns two units of this high-tech oven.

The four lecture rooms also have high-tech A/V facilities. But, as James says, to make the students effective chefs in the future, more contact hours are spent in the kitchens of the school than the classrooms.

The library of Istituto Culinario is cozy with a vast collection of traditional and modern culinary references, online resources and the latest industry periodicals. It has an ongoing tieup with Fully Booked. (Sara shares that her mother Precious doesn’t go home from her trips abroad without bringing titles to add to their collection.)

Istituto’s Culinary Heavyweights

Istituto Culinario is manned by culinary heavyweights in the country. Aside from Antolin, the school has in its esteemed roster of instructors the following full-time chefs: Chris Bautista, Jerome Valencia, JA Ventura and Ching Yoingco.

Chef James, who began his career after graduating from the California Culinary Academy at Patina on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, and at the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach, California, is currently the vice president of the award-winning Pastry Alliance of the Philippines. He is also the competition director of major culinary competitions in the Philippines like the Philippine Culinary Cup.

Chef Chris, on the other hand, formerly headed the Culinary Arts of Lyceum of the Philippines in Intramuros after he graduated from the Center for Culinary Arts in Manila. He was once a personal chef at the Mexican Embassy in Seoul. He is the managing partner of Jalapeno Cantina Mexicana in Ortigas.

Chef Jerome is a partner at Canteen in Legazpi Village, a restaurant he co-owns with his mentor, chef Fernando Aracama. His expertise was honed when he trained under three British chefs in Australia. He then became the sous chef of the legendary Uva restaurant and was part of the team that created the menu for Republiq.

Formerly the culinary programs director of Academy for International Culinary Arts, chef JA is now chef consultant for San Miguel-Purefoods Corp. He also worked as executive chef of the Red Crab Group of Restaurants.

Coming from the foodie Hizon family of Pampanga, becoming a chef was already in the DNA of chef Ching. He is one of the most experienced and awarded culinary team coaches in the country. He led the Philippines to win international competitions in Hong Kong and Singapore.

In chef Cyrille Soenen, Istituto Culinario found its primary industry partner. Cyrille is the chef-patron of the celebrated French restaurant Cicou. The restaurant is located on the ground level of the culinary school. The training of the students includes an internship at the restaurant. 

Nurturing Well-Rounded Kitchen Maestros

Because the people behind the school know that food is both art and life, they teach their students how a chef should be well rounded.

James says, “A well-rounded chef knows how to respect the table and the cutting board. He respects his kitchen surroundings: he washes the plates, mops the floor. He even does his own garbage management.”

In short, at Istituto Culinario, they understand the need to produce creative and cerebral chefs — future kitchen maestros who will nourish the body, uplift the spirit and inspire other minds.

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For more information, call Istituto Culinario at 723-9064 or 722-9720 to 27 loc. 234, or visit www.istitutoculinario.ph. Exclusive hands-on courses from master chefs are also offered in the school’s “Master Chef Series”: chef Fernando Aracama will tackle “Modern Filipino” (July 28); chef Cyrille Soenen, “Classic French” (Aug. 11); chef Alex Chong, “Spicy Singaporean” (Aug. 25); chef Penk Ching, “World Class Cake Decorating” (Sept. 15); and chef Juan Carlos De Terry, “Spanish Specialties” (Sept. 22).