by Sue Barry

“I helped train culinary students tonight,” said one diner upon leaving the Yorktowne Institute Culinary Arts Center, even though she had no culinary background except for a taste for good food.

The Culinary Arts Center is actually called a student-operated restaurant classroom. The culinary students cook for you, they wait on you, and they open your wine bottles. They learn what it is like to make someone’s evening a divine dining experience.

Several years ago, I had a similar experience dining in the Escoffier Room of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, New York, so I had some expectation of what dinner here might be like. At the CIA, traditional French food is made by students in a glassed-in kitchen in the Escoffier Room, a room very formal and elegant, albeit a tad stuffy.

The restaurant design of the York Culinary Arts Center Restaurant Classroom is much less formal, almost minimalist. Modest photos of food and related items hang on deep-orange walls. Meandering halogen lighting is overhead, and the layout is completely open. It’s cool; modernism is sleek and clean. A curved counter keeps diners on the opposite side of an open service area. If you want to see the student chefs cooking, you will have to catch them before you enter the restaurant. Take a look inside the windows to the rear of the building at the parking area when you drive up to the restaurant.

The menu changes periodically at the Culinary Arts Center, a BYOB establishment, and we were fortunate to be dining when their World Cuisine dinner was featured. (Beginning November 8, the menu will be Spanish influenced.) For $21.95, dinner guests choose between assorted appetizers, soup or salad, and an entrée. All offerings are features from different parts of the world. While you are contemplating the menu, a basket of biscuits and light but full-flavored jalapeno cornbread is served.

From Bimini comes the Bahamian aphrodisiac conch, a delicious staple of the island diet. An appetizer in the form of Conch Fritters featured nicely crusted, firm, white meat of this univalve mixed with seasonings and served with pomegranate-studded mango aioli. From the Atlantic Ocean to the below-sea-level city of New Orleans, traditional Oysters Bienville arrived at our table. The briny oysters, with their edges slightly curled from being baked, were moistened with a rich and hearty browned bechamel sauce.

Two popular Chinese appetizers are presented on one plate at the Restaurant Kitchen and make a hearty beginning course: Potstickers, which are large Chinese dumplings, and Shrimp Toast, a shrimp mixture spread on bread and then fried. This dish didn’t have time to cool down before it arrived piping hot, as it should. The final appetizer offered, called A Pile of Bones, was actually North Carolina hickory-smoked spare ribs with a chunky, red onion barbeque sauce served on the side. Flavorful and tangy, these ribs served at room temperature were not too meaty and sticky.

Straight from Cajun country came Alligator and Andoulle Sausage Gumbo. The gumbo had a thick and hearty base with deep flavor but unfortunately, contained no more than a scant amount of alligator and andoulle. I know we were some of the later dinner arrivals, but I would have preferred an apology that they were out of the gumbo rather than receive the tail end of the tail end. (By the way, the tail of the alligator is the only part you eat!) Luckily, the Southwestern Corn and Green Chili Soup fared better.

Mexican Caesar Salad was the lone salad offering, served in its own high-backed and artful taco shell. A bonus ingredient in the salad was white, crunchy jicama shreds, and the salad was lightly dressed, not over laden. The taco shell that served as a vehicle for the salad was both flaky and crispy unlike the usually listless taco shells of others.

Service was on throughout most of the night, although at times slightly timid. Chef David Haynes is the on-site chef instructor overseeing the students. His presence is clearly felt as you can tell he wants everything to be at its utmost best.

Louisiana cuisine pops up for a third time with Blackened Pork Loin with Cajun Bearnaise Sauce. The blackening added a depth of flavor and disguised the pork being slightly dry, a function of the leanness of the cut in these times. Fried potatoes and Maquechoux, a delicious Cajun corn dish originating from the Native American tribes that populated southwest Louisiana, rounded out the dish.

For $3 more, St. Mary’s County (Chesapeake Bay) Crab Cakes could be had. Two large browned crab cakes made from lump crabmeat speckled with scallions and red and yellow minced bell peppers filled the plate. Red potato salad with hints of pickle was a side dish. According to the menu, country-style green beans were to also accompany the dish, but with no warning or objection, steamed asparagus was substituted for the beans. An almost-forgotten deviled egg arrives later.

A dining partner who got married three months ago in Jamaica opted for the Jamaican Jerk Chicken. The heat of the Scotch bonnet chilies, allspice, and thyme flavoring the chicken made this dish the second best Jamaican experience of his life. Coconut rice and characteristic sweet pigeon peas added more island flare.

A range of desserts are offered from the school’s pastry shop, and, on the night of our visit, the ultimate winner was Mexican Chocolate Cake, made with traditional Mexican chocolate containing cinnamon. This melting, moist cake with a side of pure-brewed, heavy-bodied Sumatran coffee — among the world’s finest — was to be a fine ending.

But, we hadn’t ended just yet. As an anniversary present, friends at the table gave us a cordial called Lemoncello, a lemon-flavored liqueur from Italy. Our waitress brought us appropriate glasses, and we toasted the occasion. Curiosity and inquisitiveness from the staff and even the chef instructor was detected, so we offered to share the bottle with students (who were over 21) who wanted a taste of a liqueur they had never heard of before. It was an instantaneous hit, and our table was surrounded by more white uniforms than would surround a hospital bed.

After a great dinner, we left the Culinary School Restaurant Classroom having had a great dinner and feeling that we helped train culinary students – even teaching them something they did not previously know.

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