ITALIAN CULINARY ACADEMY OPENS IN MANHATTAN
By Lucy Gordan

Rome, January 8, 2007

Last June 15th, a delegation from ALMA, the most authoritative school of Italian cuisine in Italy, led by Gualtiero Marchesi, and another from the French Culinary Institute of New York, the most qualified culinary school in the United States, led by its founder and CEO, Dorothy Cann Hamilton, chaired a joint press conference at the Foreign Press Association in Rome to announce that they had formed a partnership and on January 8, 2007, would be jointly opening The Italian Culinary Academy.

Gualtiero Marchesi

This is the first comprehensive educational program of Italian Cuisine in the United States, already home to 25,000 Italian restaurants and climbing. The 29-week program will be divided into four sections. During the first one, ten weeks long, in the brand new Italian wing in the same building as the French Culinary Institute in lower Manhattan at 462 Broadway, the students will learn the basic techniques of Italian cooking and study the Italian language.

The next 18 weeks are to be spent in Italy. The first nine weeks will be at ALMA's campus in Colorno just outside Parma for a more in-depth focus on Italian regional cuisine, along with additional Italian language studies.

In addition to improving their cooking skills, the students will visit prosciutto, salami, cheese, pasta, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar producers as well as wine cellars. During the second nine weeks every student will work as an intern at a high-quality restaurant, selected by ALMA, one in each region of Italy, 20 regions for the 20 students max. in each course.

Students will then return to New York for a final week of classes in kitchen management, practical review, their final exam, and to cook special dinners at the Academy's new restaurant. Students who successfully complete the entire program will be awarded a joint (ALMA/ICA) certificate in Italian cuisine.

Dorothy Cann Hamilton, founder of the Italian Culinary Academy in New York	Cesare Casella, Dean of the Italian Culinary Academy in N.Y.

At the press conference in Rome Mr. Marchesi, the rector of ALMA, said: "Chefs who will have this extraordinary experience will garner unique professional knowledge and experience many unforgettable moments and memories; they will be ambassadors for Italian cuisine for life." Needless to say, Mr. Marchesi, the first Italian chef to earn 3 Michelin-stars, knows what he is talking about. (To learn more about this Milanese maestro, see the my interview with him published in the Epicurean Traveler ezine in December 2003).

ALMA at Colomo

Also accompanying Mr. Marchesi was chef Cesare Casella, since 2005 Dean of Italian Studies at the French Culinary Institute in New York. Mr. Casella, a native of Tuscany, owner of the restaurant "Maremma" (228 West 10th Street, tel. 212-645-0200), as well as author of Diary of a Tuscan Chef, Italian Cooking for Dummies and True Tuscan, is the new Dean of ICA. "We want to ensure," he said, "that every student who enters these new Italian programs leaves with the same world-class education for which The FCI and ALMA have always been known". In 2007 the program will be offered four times. In spite of its $37,000 tuition, the first two courses are sold out. For more information call (888-)FCI-CHEF or 212-219-8890 or click on the websites: www.frenchculinary.com or www.InternationalCulinaryCenter.com