It was a brutal section for Los Angeles restaurants. Since 2023, hundreds of notable spots have closed in the middle of food and labor costs and a weakening economy.
More recently, the local scene was also disrupted by January fires, which burnt down several restaurants, have temporarily closed workers. Then, this summer, the federal raids of the application of immigration led many undocumented workers to leave their posts on the fear of detention.
It is a risky environment in which launching a career in the catering industry. But the Los Angeles Tradechnical College culinary program tells a different story – registrations increased by 13% last year, and this has increased by almost 30% since 2019.
Jerry Vachon, president of the Culinary Trade-Tech program, examines the grapes of the school garden.
(CARLIN STIEHL / LOS Angeles Times)
The growth of the program occurs while culinary schools have also closed in the last decade: the cordon Bleu has closed its colleges across the country, including a Pasadena branch in 2017; And a handful of other notables closed in 2020 in the middle of the COVVI-19 pandemic.
The recent culinary graduates of trade in trade – and the instructors who taught them – said that they are not surprised by the success of the school, explaining that the program has an attraction, in part, because it teaches useful and real skills in a new modern building.
“Going to school is super important – I tell the young cooks we have,” said Katya Shastova, a culinary graduate of commercial technology, the folk wine chef, a well -revised Hermosa Beach restaurant that opened last year. “Some people think you can learn in the kitchen. Yes, you can. But when you enter a kitchen with techniques that are already integrated into you … It puts you at a different level. ”
Robert Wemischner is a longtime instructor at the Culinary School of the Trade-Tech.
(CARLIN STIEHL / LOS Angeles Times)
The longtime instructor, Robert Wemischner, said that the program emphasizes the fact of giving “the students a real view of the work they will do in the field”.
“Even at a time when the landscape is dark, or rather uncertain … Students wish to find a career, pursue a passion,” he said. “And they find teachers who feed this.”
There are also other factors. The president of the department, Jerry Vachon, said that the program could benefit from a post-avid-19 bump because people are rethinking their careers. The Los Angeles College Promised Initiative, launched approximately ten years ago by the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Community College District, also helped. It provides two years of tuition fees for certain high school students with graduates in the nine schools in the college district, the trade of trade among them.
Vachon projects the future growth of the culinary school, which offers certificates and associate diplomas, by creating new study subjects. Trade-Tech will start to assign a plant-based kitchen certificate from this fall. The program also aims to provide certificates in catering trucks and mobile sales by 2026. The two increasingly popular areas have lower entrance barriers than restaurants.
Why students register
The culinary arts building of around $ 50 million, which opened in the summer of 2021, is an installation of a showcase that transformed the program, said Vachon. During a recent tour, he showed a garden used by a new class in green technology and a cave room which included 12 mini-greffers and was filled with brilliant stainless steel devices.
Many students, he said, “really didn’t live” using the type of high-end equipment that the school provides.
The large main kitchen of the building accommodates several classes, including production cooking and butcher’s shop. Vachon, who has long taught a class on cold cuts – “We make pastry, terrines,” he said – was particularly proud of dry refrigerators, where Salami hung. It is near the Campus café, whose offers are prepared and sold by students.
Raul Gonzalez pivoted mathematics on the Culinary Trade-Tech program three years ago. He graduated from a partner in culinary arts this spring.
(CARLIN STIEHL / LOS Angeles Times)
Students who recently completed the program said the facilities had seduced them. Raul Gonzalez, 26, said he was studying mathematics in Trade-Tech, but left after an epiphany during a calculation exam: “I don’t want to do it for the rest of my life.” He pivoted the culinary school three years ago and obtained his diploma in culinary arts associate this spring.
“I have always had a passion for cooking. He finally clicked for me, “said Gonzalez, who is now working on his associate diplomas in bakery and restaurant management, and works in school cafe during the summer. He hopes to open a restaurant in Guatemala, where his parents come from.
Sandy Hernandez, 19, said that cooking was a hobby in high school – but she wanted to develop her skills. She signed up for the school’s bakery program in 2023. Hernandez, who obtained her certificate this spring, has already found a job preparing troubles and other articles for a coffee and a caterer.
For many students, it is useful that the program is relatively affordable: Vachon said that students can obtain their certificate or diploma for about $ 3,500 to $ 5,000, depending on the route they choose. In comparison, it costs $ 22,05 per semester to attend the outpost of the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, California.
What graduates say
Graduates of the Trade-Tech Culinary Program said that it had prepared them for their career.
Ricardo Mora, 34, left a job in sales about ten years ago and signed up for Trade-Tech in order to become a pastry chef. He obtained certificates from cooking and culinary programs in 2017 and 2018, and worked for about three years as a pastry cook, with a visit to the SLS hotel in Beverly Hills.
Sandy Hernandez is a recent graduate of the Trade-Tech culinary school. She has already found a job preparing crèches and other items for a coffee and a caterer.
(CARLIN STIEHL / LOS Angeles Times)
Finally, however, he tired and pivoted it in food photography in 2020. What he learned from Trade-Tech helped him in this new adventure.
“I spent years working with food, knowing how food should be presented to people,” said Mora, who is in South Gate. “I can help [clients] Make sure food is perfect for a photo. »»
Another graduate, Eric Warren, 72, also used his experience of commercial technology to launch a culinary career in the late 1950s. After graduating in 2011, he made his debut on OOO-OUS! Sauce, a “sweet, spicy and sassy frosting” which said with everything, eggs with pork net. Its path was unique, but he thinks that the culinary program is revealed versatile graduates.
“You can start returning hamburgers, but you can end up being a caviar specialist,” said Warren. “Everyone has to eat.”
Jerry Vachon, president of the Culinary Trade-Tech program, also teaches there.
(CARLIN STIEHL / LOS Angeles Times)
Shastova, 34, the folk wine chief, who, according to Times, was “the most exciting restaurant to open in South Bay in recent memory”, is one of the most visible recent graduates of this program.
A Russian immigrant, Shastova came to the United States in 2011 and settled in New York before moving to Los Angeles. Thinking about her next move, she thought about her mother’s bakery at home.
“I thought I already knew how to do this,” she said, laughing. “Then I found the trade-tech.”
She obtained a certificate in culinary studies in 2017.
In another testimony to the value of a culinary education of commercial technology, two other graduates with which Shastova frequented the school found jobs in a restaurant in the Los Angeles region.
These are line cooks at Wine Folk.