Culinary Institute of America at Greystone

The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone
Established	1946
Type	Private
President	L. Timothy Ryan, Ed.D.
Location	NapaValley, California, USA
Campus	Rural
Nickname	CIA at Greystone
Website	http://www.ciachef.edu/california

CIA Campus in St. Helena

The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena, California is a branch campus of The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) at Greystone provides continuing education and career development for professionals in the food, wine, health, and hospitality fields. The campus also offers associate degrees in either culinary arts or baking and pastry arts.

Location

The Greystone campus is situated in and around the Greystone Cellars building, built in 1888 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Greystone Cellars was formerly owned by Christian Brothers, who, from 1950 to 1989, used the facility for sparkling wine production. The old Greystone Winery was originally a co-operative winery founded in 1889.

Programs Offered

Greystone programs include associate degrees in culinary arts and in baking and pastry arts, a 30-week Accelerated Culinary Arts Certificate Program, a 30-week Accelerated Wine and Beverage Certificate Program, and an assortment of culinary arts programs for students who have met some basic requirements. Not all the students attending are required to have an undergraduate degree, however. Some students are sent by corporations to hone their skills or to learn a particular type of cuisine. Other students are seeking a specialized certificate in a particular discipline.

School Facilities

The centerpiece of the campus is the 117,000-square-foot (10,900 m²), three-story Greystone Cellars building which was transformed to house the teaching kitchens, Ecolab Theatre, Wine Spectator Greystone Restaurant, Spice Islands Marketplace, De Baun Theatre, De Baun Café, and administrative offices.

Teaching Kitchens

The teaching kitchens at Greystone are situated on the top floor. Created to facilitate ease of movement and an open exchange of ideas, the kitchens were built without walls and with an eye toward retaining the distinctive architecture of the original space. The surroundings of granite, stone, tile, and wood are a departure from the typical stainless steel commercial kitchen. Cooking classes gather around custom-designed "suites," which employ a myriad of cooking methods and technologies, from a traditionally crafted rotisserie to the advanced technology of magnetic heat induction. Baking classes work on 16-foot (4.9 m) flecked granite and solid oak work surfaces for pastry and dough preparation. A stone hearth oven, convection ovens, and a battery of massive mixers represent a sample of the array of equipment available to the baking student.

The Wine Spectator Greystone Restaurant

The Wine Spectator Greystone Restaurant provides real-life, hands-on experience for students in the associate degree program in culinary arts. Local,seasonal ingredients are the inspiration for the cuisine. The dining room presents open cooking stations, giving diners full view of the chefs at work.

The De Baun Café

The De Baun Café provides a real-world retail extension for the students of the Baking and Pastry Arts Certificate at CIA Greystone. Offering freshly baked pastries and breads, the De Baun Café also serves coffee, espresso drinks, and teas in a coffee-bar style setting.

The De Baun Theatre

Cooking demonstrations are offered daily to the public in the De Baun Theatre. The 48-seat demonstration kitchen provides Greystone visitors an opportunity to learn cooking techniques oriented toward the home cook, while providing a window onto the world of the professional chef.

The Spice Islands Marketplace

Greystone's campus store offers an array of cooking equipment, cookbooks, uniforms, and other culinary-related items for visiting students and the general public. The Marketplace offers food ingredients from around the world that complement the course curriculum. The campus store also features a Flavor Bar where guests can experience tasting exercises created by CIA faculty.

The Ecolab Theatre

The Ecolab Theatre is a 125-seat amphitheater-style demonstration auditorium that rises through the first two levels of the building. Designed for cooking demonstrations, lectures, food and wine tastings, and other special events, the auditorium features a custom-designed 22-foot (6.7 m) cooking center, large-screen video monitors, and fixed tables for wine and food service at each seat.

The Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies

The Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies, formerly the historic Still House building, is home to the CIA's Professional Wine Studies Program. The Center features sensory analysis classrooms with wireless keypad response systems, built-in light boxes, and expectoration stations. The Rudd Center contains a pantry, a 4,000-bottle wine cave and private dining room, and a hospitality terrace overlooking heritage oaks and vineyards. Karen MacNeil is the creator and chairman of the center.^[1][2]

The Williams Center for Flavor Discovery

The Williams Center for Flavor Discovery, in the former Gate House, provides a venue for the study of culinary flavors and the dynamics of flavor development in food and wine. The Williams Center features technology that allows students and food and wine industry professionals to directly interact with chefs, winemakers, food producers, and other experts to evaluate reactions and to produce solutions to a broad range of flavor questions. The results of tasting panels conducted at the Williams Center are shared with the industry to enhance the collective understanding of flavor in food, cooking, wine, and agriculture.

Ventura Center for Menu Research and Development

The Ventura Center for Menu Research and Development encompasses 8,000 square feet (740 m²) of ideation rooms, a theater-style kitchen, and interactive audience response technologies. The Center was built with movable walls.

See also

• List of colleges and universities in California

References

1. ^ Heimoff, Steve, Wine Enthusiast (July 18, 2007). Q & A with Karen MacNeil
2. ^ Wine Business (March 29, 2010). Wine Expert and Author Karen MacNeil Launches New Brand Identity and Innovative Website

External links

• The Culinary Institute of America in California official Web site
• The Culinary Institute of America in California Professional Chef Web site

Coordinates: 38°30′53″N 122°29′04″W / 38.51472°N 122.484545°W / 38.51472; -122.484545