Culinary Institute of America at Greystone

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

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 is dedicated to continuing education and career development for professionals in the food, wine, health, and hospitality fields. Greystone, the West Coast branch of the Culinary Institute of America, highlights the college's continuing pursuit to provide the highest caliber of professional education in the culinary arts. Greystone also offers an associate degree in culinary arts.


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[edit] 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. Visitors are drawn to Greystone by its magnificent architecture and position as one of the Napa Valley's most distinguished structures. The old Greystone Winery was originally a co-operative winery founded in 1889.


[edit] Programs Offered

Greystone programs include an associate degree in culinary arts, a 30 week Baking and Pastry certificate program, a 30 week Wine Studies 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. In other words, a custom curriculum.


[edit] School Facilities

The centerpiece of the campus is the 117,000-square-foot, 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.

[edit] Teaching Kitchens

The teaching kitchens at Greystone are situated on the top floor, looking out upon vineyards and mountains. 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. They reflect a warm ambiance of granite, stone, tile, and wood—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 work tables of flecked granite and solid oak, which provide ideal 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.

[edit] The Wine Spectator Greystone Restaurant

The Wine Spectator Greystone Restaurant celebrates the passions of the chef, farmer, and winemaker in a menu born of the terroir of the wine country. Chefs draw upon the unique bounty of Northern California to create a dynamic cuisine that shifts with the seasons and the fresh ingredients available from day to day. The dining room features open cooking stations, giving diners full view of the theater of chefs at work. An outdoor dining terrace offers spectacular views of the valley's vineyards and mountains, while a warming fire greets guests in the cooler months.

[edit] 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.

[edit] The De Baun Theatre

Cooking demonstrations are offered daily to the public in the De Baun Theatre. As a state-of-the art, 48-seat demonstration kitchen, the De Baun Theatre provides the visitor to Greystone an opportunity to learn cooking techniques oriented toward the home cook, while providing a unique window onto the world of the professional chef. A monthly schedule of recipes demonstrated in the De Baun Theatre can be viewed at www.ciachef.edu/california/demonstrations.asp.

[edit] The Spice Islands Marketplace

Housed in the south wing of the Greystone building houses , it is a dynamic store featuring an impressive array of cooking equipment, cookbooks, uniforms, and other culinary-related items for Greystone's visiting students and the general public. The Marketplace offers unique food ingredients from around the world that complement the course curriculum.

[edit] The EcoLab Theatre

The EcoLab Theatre is a 125-seat amphitheater-style demonstration auditorium that rises dramatically 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 cooking center, large-screen video monitors, and fixed tables for wine and food service at each seat.

[edit] 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 state-of-the art 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.

[edit] The Williams Center for Flavor Discovery

The Williams Center for Flavor Discovery, in the former Gate House, is an international center 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.

[edit] Ventura Center for Menu Research and Development

Designed to inspire innovative, menu-driven business solutions for the foodservice industry, the Ventura Center for Menu Research and Development encompasses 8,000 square feet of ideation rooms, a theater-style kitchen, and interactive audience response technologies. The Center was built with movable walls to facilitate a variety of group activities and business goals.


[edit] External links