The Ten-Minute Manager’s Guide to ... College Visiting-Chefs Programs

The Ten-Minute Manager’s Guide to ... Visiting-Chefs Programs

By Christine LaFave, Associate Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 4/1/2008

GUEST-CHEF EVENTS ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES should be a win-win undertaking. The chefs who share their fare get free, meaningful exposure to potential customers, and the dining-services programs that host the events get an opportunity to stir new interest among diners and staff.

But several months’ worth of planning and likely an investment of several thousand dollars are necessary to help ensure that day-of glitches are avoided. Additionally, to reap maximum rewards from a visiting-chef event, dining directors should look beyond the special meal itself to find ways to actively engage both the chef’s and the school’s audiences.

Set the Tone

Giving students, faculty and staff a taste of a visiting restaurant’s dining experience might begin with the food served, but it doesn’t end there. Bringing in music, decorative elements or tablewares similar to those the restaurant uses and training staff members to follow the concept’s service style can add interest for guests and demonstrate to chefs a commitment to the quality of guest-chef events.

"That kind of stuff is part of it as well," says Richard Anderson, general manager of residential dining and retail stores for Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.. For a Cross Country Gourmet event with San Antonio restaurant Rosario’s, Cornell Dining rounded up candles nearly identical to those the restaurant uses. At University of Massachusetts, Amherst, guest chefs from other schools often are accompanied to the event by the school’s mascot. Perhaps the most important day-of element to draw in curious students is to offer opportunities for diners to engage with the chef. At the University of Minnesota, guest-chef lunches are served buffet-style, and the chef helps serve one of his or her dishes. "They’re interacting with the guest, which is not something they always have the opportunity to do," says Karen DeVet, assistant director of dining services at Minnesota (an Aramark-managed account).

Brown University in Providence, R.I., offers a raffle for students the night before the event. The 50 winners get to watch the chef demonstrate preparation of two or three menu items in a separate room in the dining hall during the event.

Menu Matters

Creating a workable menu often poses the most challenges in planning visiting-chef events. Between ingredient-sourcing difficulties and confusion over recipe details, menu snafus are likely to arise at some point. Keeping things running smoothly, operators say, is a matter of staying in regular contact with the chef and leaving no question unasked.

"Once we secure the restaurant, we go and visit the restaurant," says Cornell’s Anderson, The university’s Cross Country Gourmet series has been up and running since 1977 and has brought chefs from storied restaurants such as Commander’s Palace in New Orleans as well as up-and-comers, including Chicago’s Quartino, to campus to prepare a prix-fixe dinner for 250-400 guests.

"We try a bunch of things on the menu, and we meet with the chef or the owner or both," Anderson says. "While we’re there, we gather information about sources for different products, and in the intervening time we’re working back and forth about ingredients."

Finding cascabel peppers, needed for a dish from Rosario’s restaurant in San Antonio, wasn’t easy. "And then the first time it came in it was not the correct pepper."

Brown Executive Chef John O’Shea notes the challenge of "institutionalizing" a restaurant’s recipe but still maintaining "the integrity of the recipe itself." To make sure recipe tweaks work as well in practice as they sound on paper, Brown invites guest chefs to campus for a menu run-through.

"The chef would come to our facility and do a tasting and evaluate everything we did for the event," O’Shea says. "If he agreed with how we did it, he’d sign off on it and the recipes would go into the recipe database."

Portion sizes and nutrition are considered. At least one item on a UMass visiting chef’s menu must fit a more-healthful profile.

"We learn from each other," says Ken Toong, UMass director of dining and retail services. When Executive Chef Mark Bratton of Virginia Tech visited UMass for a guest-chef event in February, Toong worked with Bratton to scale down some recipes—at Virginia Tech, a standard protein portion is 6 ounces; at UMass, it’s 3 ounces.

Start It Up

Whether the visiting chef is from a long-established local institution or rising-star restaurant 2,000 miles away, early and detailed preparation for the event is crucial.

"Allow yourself a good four months, minimum," says John O’Shea, executive chef of Brown University Dining Services in Providence, R.I. O’Shea strives to feature restaurants within a reasonable driving distance of campus—"When parents are here for parents’ weekend, [students might say] ‘Look, let’s go here,’" he says—and several months’ worth of prep time allows for several back-and-forth visits with the chef. In addition to giving both parties ample time to finalize the menu and source ingredients, an extra-early start eases the planning pressure on the restaurant.

"You have to have the chef from the facility write these recipes out," O’Shea says. "You can’t be too pushy; they’re doing it for free."

Weeks before the event, nail down scheduling details of the chef’s visit. Among the particulars to confirm: what time the chef will arrive at the dining facility on the day of the event. At Brown, guest chefs usually show up early in the afternoon to begin preparing for dinner service; at UMass, guest chefs are in the kitchen by 9 a.m.

A Certain Persuasion

How can schools lure chefs to campus in the first place? A demonstrably organized planning process with a clear-cut service agreement can help ease commercial chefs’ fears about working with a likely much-larger-scale operation. Provide to prospective guest chefs not only standard dining-services promotional materials but also a list of expectations for visiting-chef events and an event-planning time line that includes the dining-services director’s contact information.

Also:

• Think about the ideal timing for the event. A mid-fall or late-winter date may be especially attractive, because the restaurant’s summer or holiday business will have slowed and students—at least those in cooler climes—won’t be lured off campus at mealtime by restaurants offering al fresco dining. Avoid hosting events the week before finals, the week before spring break or during Greek or-ganizations’ rush/recruitment weeks.
• Emphasize to prospective chefs the school’s willingness to work with the restaurant to maximize the business-boosting opportunities of a guest-chef event. If the restaurant is local, consider whether the event can be open to the public. At the University of Minnesota, guest-chef lunches at the faculty favorite Bistro West restaurant are open to anyone and everyone, and reservations are recommended. "We do see a 20% increase in customer traffic on that day," says Karen DeVet, resident district manager for Aramark and assistant director of dining services at Minnesota. "It’s a relatively cost-effective way for people to visit some of these restaurants."
• If the restaurant is from a more far-flung locale, offer to make dining-services representatives available for media interviews in the restaurant’s market. Cornell Dining staff members participated in a radio interview during a trip to Texas to finalize details of the guest-chef event with Rosario’s restaurant in San Antonio.
• Finally, promise (and deliver) an enjoyable on-campus experience. Set up tours of unique school-dining facilities or must-see campus spots as desired/requested, and if the chef will be around for a couple of days, help arrange around-town dining and entertainment plans. "Treat the chefs nicely," says UMass’s Toong. "Give them a nice hotel room." When the chef from Virginia Tech University visited UMass, Dining Services was able to provide tickets to an on-campus Carrie Underwood concert.