Chefs’ Delight: Graduate chefs to dish up delectable delights
University of Akron graduate chefs return to campus Saturday, Nov. 1, to cook up a culinary celebration. The gourmet dinner will include such courses as roasted butternut squash soup, honey-sriracha glazed salmon with mesclun mix greens, butterscotch pies, with wine pairings and cider-and-sage sorbet servings in between courses. This annual sellout event, the Graduate Chefs Dinner, takes place at the Crystal Room Bistro, located in Gallucci Hall on Grant Street, off Exchange Street, with hors d’oeuvres beginning at 5:30 p.m. and the meal at 6 p.m.
Sorbets are always on the menu for the Graduate Chefs Dinner.
“Not only is this the biggest fundraiser we have, it’s what sets Akron’s culinary arts program apart from other schools in the area," says hospitality management student Caleb Landis, president of UA’s Culinary Artists Club. "There are great culinary schools out there, but having an event like this, where students and alumni have to put their own time into it, makes them able to stand out with their own skills and talents and showcase what they have done.”
Students in the Culinary Artists Club work behind the scenes at the event helping the chefs with the meal preparation. One of those chefs working at this year’s event is Bradley Smith, who headed off to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, after he graduated from UA in 1994.
Event tickets cost $50. Reservations can be made by calling 330-972-6615.
All proceeds from the dinner benefit the Culinary Artists Club, funding student participation in ice-carving competitions, vegetable-carving events, workshops and other educational activities, including one-on-one training with renowned chefs.
Event regulars range from staff and families, to community members.
Landis describes the event as a “fun time, where the chefs come back to the kitchen, cook together and make beautiful food. It’s a way for the chefs who went through the program to give back to the students.”
Story by Joseph Mario Micale
Media contact: Denise Henry, 330-972-6477 or henryd@uakron.edu.