About Culinary Arts

The Five Mother Sauces, Espagnole, Velouté, Béchamel, French Tomato, and Hollandaise, are essential to every chef.  Keeping large amounts on hand allows the chef to prepare ¤small sauces¤ by adding ingredients to the base sauces that will diversify their uses and enhance the flavors of the whole meal.  Mastering the mother sauces is the starting point for training chefs.  Similarly, the RHS Culinary Arts Magnet program provides a mastery of the science, business, and creative expression within the art of cooking—the base from which students can pursue individualized interests across all aspects of the trade.

The RHS Culinary Arts program, planned in partnership with the National Restaurant Associations ProStart curriculum, offers a unique, hands-on culinary and food-business laboratory education, preparing students for admission to the top culinary programs in the country.  According to the U.S.  Department of Labor, food service is one of the most rapidly growing industries.  As a result, the skill levels of future chefs will continue to increase with growing demand, states the National Restaurant Association.  RHS works with culinary colleges across the country, including Le Cordon Bleu, Johnson & Wales, and The Culinary Institute of America, to guarantee a comprehensive curriculum.  Notably, students practice their future trade in a gleaming, modern, industry-standard kitchen modeled on the training kitchens of The Art Institute of Dallas.  Our four-year program emphasizes the principles and procedures of cuisine and culinary arts' history, evolution, and diversity.  Students learn the basic techniques of professional kitchen cooking and essential food service skills, e.g., safety, sanitation, cost control, restaurant management, menus, and table service.  Our single and double-block class times balance 70% hands-on instructional labs and 30% safety, sanitation, business training, menu planning, and other culinary trade components.  Students train to earn multiple certifications.  In a balanced curriculum of science proficiency, business expertise, and culinary skills, students master the fundamentals so that their creativity and ambition can take them wherever they choose.

Year 1  encompasses the various concepts, positions, and skills of the multifaceted hospitality, tourism and restaurant industry.  Semester one emphasizes food safety, planning, organizing, and management of food service operations, including the components of a well-run restaurant; in semester two, students enter the lab to hone basic food preparation skills.

• Hospitality and tourism industry 

• Food service careers 

• Communication skills; customer service

• Nutrition; Influences on food choice

• Culinary Math

• Cooking labs; kitchen basics; food preparation techniques

• Food management skills; food safety and sanitation

Year 2  focuses on the "back of the house" kitchen, becoming a chef, and increasing culinary lab training.  In double-blocked practicum labs, students survey the food service industry in fundamental concepts, research career opportunities, and expand basic cookery skills and techniques.

• Kitchen basics; food safety and sanitation

• Intermediate food preparation techniques

• More on nutrition and influences on food choice

• The art of service

• Fruits, vegetables, dairy, grains

• Intro to Pastry 

Year 3  –provides extensive training in knowledge and skills for culinary arts post-secondary studies and employment during two-hour practicum labs.  Students explore management of food service establishments, baking and pastries, food presentation, marketing strategies, legal considerations, and further career options.  They earn Meat Selection and Cookery certification and operate the RHS restaurant "Eagle Café¤, gaining real-world experience in restaurant management and catering within the District.

• Meat Selection and Cookery certification

• Marketing and menus; food cost control

• Beef, pork, poultry, seafood

• Advanced pastry

• Foodservice history

Year 4  combines classroom and on-the-job internship experiences in a unique practicum of occupationally specific opportunities for students; students also extend and enrich their knowledge and proficiency base.