Imagine the following business model:
You run a business that attracts a steady stream of affluent customers, who are drawn in by the prestige of your name and are willing to pay your high prices. Your customers accept and forgive missteps in the quality of your product, because they understand that your workers are apprentices still learning their trade. You pay no labor costs. In fact, your labor force pays YOU for the opportunity to work.
Now that’s a good business model, wouldn’t you say? Money in the bank.
Welcome to the American Bounty Restaurant at The Culinary Institute of America.
Even on an overcast evening, you’d have to be blind not to notice that The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park is a beautiful place. I suppose it should be — the CIA’s the premier culinary college in the country. Here’s an aerial view from their website:
Still, my parents and I, the inquisitive folks that we are, wondered, how does the CIA have so much money?
The answer became clear when scanning the names of campus buildings:
Anheuser-Busch Theater
Marriott Center for Career Services
General Foods Nutrition Center
Colavita Center for Italian Food and Wine
Ah, okay, that explains a lot.
The CIA operates four on-campus, student-run restaurants, including American Bounty. It’s a handsome restaurant.
We were seated not far from the open kitchen, viewable through the window.
The pastry chefs are front and center. I don’t know about you, but I’d find it pretty unnerving trying to do my job with a bunch of gawking diners (with cameras) looking on.
Again, American Bounty is student-run. They’re not being paid to work in the restaurant; this is part of their coursework.
We found out from our server that students work as cooks, pastry chefs and waitstaff, doing three-week rotations of each. Our server had just come out of his kitchen rotation and was on his final rotation as a server — this was only his second day.
He did a fairly nice job. We only noticed two obvious errors: reaching across my mom to place her roll on the plate, and placing my knife down facing the wrong direction.
A few more interesting tidbits of inside information, courtesy of our server:
1) Yelling, screaming, people throwing things? Not just on tv. It really happens. Par for the course in the restaurant biz. I was hoping some edgy line cook would start chucking plates while I had my camera out, but no such luck.
(Note: Is there any other business where physical aggression is not only commonplace, but perfectly acceptable? Can you imagine this happening in an office environment? If I ever had a boss or co-worker hurl toner cartridges at me, we’d be throwing down in the conference room.)
2) The toughest part of working the kitchen? It’s not knowing how to prepare the food, it’s timing the cooking so that all dishes at a table come out at the same time. Requires careful synchronization among the cooks and sounds like an ulcer waiting to happen. We were told that if a dish sits for more than three minutes, it’s thrown away and the dish needs to be re-fired.
So the next time you send something back to the kitchen? Your chef’s probably cursing you out, and possibly spitting in your food, because you just screwed up his whole timing. (The server didn’t tell us that last part, I’m just drawing conclusions.)
3) Our server doesn’t want to cook as a career. He’s hoping to become a food writer (don’t we all!) and wine seller.
And now, moving on to the meal…
Starting with appetizers, like my mom’s sweet corn chowder.
Dad’s lump crab cakes.
My seared sea scallop with pork belly in a smoked tomato marmalade.
The sauce was too salty, and the squarish piece of pork belly was odd — the meat side was a little tough — but the scallop was cooked very nicely.
For entrees, my mom ordered the beef short ribs. It’s hard to see under the mound of greens.
She said the ribs were okay, but fatty, and she wasn’t psyched about the haphazard presentation of greens dumped on top of the ribs.
My dad found more success with his double thick Berkshire pork chop.
My entree of smoked Long Island duckling, set on top of edamame, corn and greens, in a curried almond sauce.
This was a mixed bag. The mild sauce was flavorful and the duckling was nice, but I didn’t taste any smokiness, and a few areas were overcooked and chewy. I also could have used a starch — at least a puree or something.
The strongest part of the meal? Undoubtedly the desserts. The desserts were really good. Like my dad’s profiteroles with homemade ice cream and a side of chocolate sauce.
Mom’s lemon-lime meringue tart. Tangy and smooth.
And my enormous piece of Bananas Foster breading pudding, topped with rum ice cream.
Like a soft, warm banana bread. Great flavors all around, and a really nice way to end the meal.
All in all, maybe the food was slightly disappointing, but we had a fun time nonetheless. What’s apparent is that the CIA is very, very savvy. American Bounty ain’t cheap — you’re paying full restaurant prices for food being prepared by students, who while on their way to becoming excellent chefs, aren’t quite there yet.
I admire these students though: they’re putting out solid dishes and are likely working long, hard hours under intense stress.
And I mean, come on, they have to cook while people scream and throw things! How many of us have to deal with that??
American Bounty Restaurant
The Culinary Institute of America
1946 Campus Drive
Hyde Park, NY
845-471-6608