• It is the most qualified continuing training offer for gastronomy professionals available in the sector. Prestigious experts in each area will participate as speakers.
• The training for professionals is divided into nine main sections: Master Class with internationally renowned chefs; product and culinary applications; cake and confectionery making; culinary techniques; front-of-house and customer care; management in catering; wine tasting and waiting; food industry; and the world of the pintxo, the grill, banquets and events.
• In the Master Class area, internationally renowned chefs will teach the courses, such as Massimo Bottura  Pascal Barbot, Joan Roca, Juan Mari Arzak, Pedro Subijana or Xabier Pellicer as a tribute to Santi Santamaría
• Among the new features for this years, we also have the ‘Nuevas miradas, rompiendo esquemas’ Conference (New outlooks, breaking down preconceptions) , in collaboration with International Omnivore Food, the renowned gastronomy festival for young talents

This year, the professionals of the gastronomic and culinary sector will have a complete offer to broaden their knowledge and experience in this field. For this purpose, the Basque Culinary Center has designed a complete programme composed of sixty courses that will touch on the most diverse aspects related to the world of gastronomy. From courses related to the product and culinary applications, cake and confectionery making, culinary techniques, front-of-house and customer care, management and catering, wine tasting and waiting, food industry, and the world of the pintxo, the grill, banquets and events.

The Master Classes will also be present in the training for professionals of this course. A total of six master classes will be given by the hand of great internationally renowned chefs. Juan Mari Arzak, Pedro Subijana, Andoni Luis Aduriz, managers from the restaurant El Bulli, Joan Roca, Pascal Barbot, Michel Bras y Massimo Bottura, will be in charge of teaching those interested the techniques, secrets and ways of preparing the most succulent dishes.

This year’s offer is characterised by its flexibility, dynamism, differentiation and for being adapted to the sector’s needs. They are intensive courses, aimed at small groups -15/20 people- and adapted in content, methods and timetable to those attending, in such a way that the participants can combine the classes with their professional work.

New Features

Among the new features this year, we can highlight the organisation of the “Nuevas miradas, rompiendo esquemas” (New outlooks, breaking down preconceptions) Conference in collaboration with the International Omnivore Food Festival, which will be hosted by the Basque Culinary Center in May 2012 and which was held in France from 2005, in New York from 2009, in Moscow from 2011 and from next year in Donostia by the hand of the Basque Culinary Center. Ominivore Food is the global scene for young talented chefs; a festival that not only reflects current trends but is also a showcase to discover future trends, new techniques and evolution of tastes.

Some of the other new features of this offer are the inclusion of a cake and confectionery making area, in which speakers of the stature of Angelo Corvitto, Michelle Williams or Jordi Bruton – will teach classes, “El helado sin secretos“ (Ice cream without secrets) will be the last course to be taught by the great maestro Angelo Corvitto.

The management programme includes courses which aim to be act as a base to help caterers in these difficult times and covers such controversial issues as the harmony between the kitchen and the front of house. How to double sales, gastronomic marketing, basic tools to promote a restaurant on the Internet, purchase management and retail price assessment, how to speak in public, how to plan taking on new people or the use of social networks as a business promotion tool, are the courses included in this area.

Other new features of this course are the inclusion of the cake and confectionery making area -which includes classes related to chocolate and chocolate making, top class recipes for cakes, dessert creation and restaurants and ice-cream making, techniques for making crunchy, sweet and salty foods and creative processes in the restaurant-; and new courses in gastronomic management. The management syllabus includes subjects such as how to double sales, gastronomic marketing, basic tools to promote a restaurant on the Internet, purchase management and retail price assessment, how to speak in public, how to plan taking on new people or the use of social networks as a business promotion tool.

Most of the courses will be taught in the recently inaugurated building of the Basque Culinary Center. Designed in a U shape, the building’s structure allows it to be organised into two groups, one devoted to the academic side and a second group devoted to the practical side. The practical learning is carried out in cooking, meat, fish, cold meats, cake making and bread making workshops and the cold room for prepared products. For the courses with demonstrative methodologies there is a showcooking classroom and an auditorium with capacity for 200 people. A tasting room for the world of wine, sensorial analysis rooms, an industrial cooking workshop, laboratories, a photographical production and video post-production workshop and a library are some of the other areas housed in these facilities.

Some of the courses will be taught at the Azti-Tecnalia facilities, at their premises in the Bizkaia Technology Park (Derio), which have an experimental kitchen, a firm commitment to scientific research applied to cooking.

The Courses

Expert professionals from all areas will visit our courses, such as Eneko Atxa, Josean Alija, Hilario Arbelaitz, Nandu Jubany, Manolo De La Osa or Ricard Camarena in Product, Angelo Corvitto in Ice Cream, Michel Williame in Cake/Confectionery, Abel Valverde, Lluis Garcia and Luis Biosca in Front of House and Customer Care, Domenec Biosca and Paco Roncero in the Management Area, or Pepe Hidalgo in Wine Tasting and Waiting.

The section on front of house and customer care will include practical courses as well as elegance and coordination of movement for smooth service, the ambience of the dining room as a sales strategy, updating in front-of-house service and customer care in the restaurant, front of house in a restaurant with avant-garde cuisine, interpersonal relations in customer care or cheese making and sales.

For its part, the wine tasting and waiting area includes related courses such as the oenologist and their wines, professional cocktail making, a programme for introduction to wine waiting; wine tasting, service and management; or wine and wood. Meanwhile, the food industry will be present via courses focussing on tools to determine the shelf life of food products, the sensorial design of flavourings for the food industry, the basic principles for the creation of textures: gels and thickeners.

The world of the pintxo and world of the grill are incorporated in the training for professionals this year. The first will be completed with courses aimed at renewing an offer of traditional courses, a practical workshop for the creation of avant-garde pintxos or key factors to the pintxo business. For its part, the grill section includes general courses to discover the basics and technique of flame grills, meat and the flame grill and flame-grilled fish and seafood.

Lastly, this year’s training offer is completed with the section on banquets and events, in which participants will learn all the details of the design, planning and organisation of a large production, vacuum packing and banquets and the cycle of an event: From the sale to the service.

A complete range of courses, sixty in total, with which the professionals of the sector can specialise and complete their training in a market in permanent evolution.

Basque Culinary Center at the most influential conference in the United States organised by the CIA

5th November 2011

It is the Worlds of Flavor Conference, organised every year by the Culinary Institute of America and which this year is dedicated to ‘informal’ cooking and its application to American menus

Those attending will get firsthand knowledge of the gastronomic culture of more than 20 regions of the world.

Euskadi (the Basque Country) will have a large delegation at the conference, with the presence of chefs, wine cellars and Basque companies from the world of gastronomy

Three of the best pintxo chefs from Euskadi will present their experience and knowledge: Edorta Lamo (A Fuego Negro in Donostia), Darren Williamson (Bitoque in Bilbao), Senen González (Sagartoki in Vitoria-Gasteiz)

California, 7th November 2011. Two weeks after signing an alliance with the centre of global reference in gastronomy, the Culinary Institute of America, the Basque Culinary Center which includes the Faculty of Gastronomic Sciences of Mondragon Unibertsitatea, is travelling back across the Atlantic to take part as a guest of honour at the 14th edition of the ‘Worlds of Flavor’ Conference, which the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) organises every year. The encounter, which will be held between 3rd and 5th November, is devoted to ‘casual’ or informal cooking, and its application to American menus and has been given the title ‘World Casual: The Future of American Menus’. The Basque Culinary Center’s objective will be to introduce those attending to the most informal type of Basque cuisines through our pintxos. The task will fall on the Director of the Basque Culinary Center, Joxe Mari Aizega.

Over three days the most influential professionals of the American Food Industry will discover firsthand the gastronomic culture of more than 20 regions of the world through papers, workshops, seminars, combined food and wine tastings. A programme full of activities with the aim that the American professionals discover in detail the informal but quality food present in different parts of the world. Several of these sessions will be dedicated to Spain and its products.

The ‘casual’ theme, the main feature of the conference, reveals the current trend of the food and catering sector towards a structural change in which consumers give priority to value for money in their decisions and the increase in informal but high quality consumption.

The Basque Participation

Euskadi will have an extensive presence at the conference from companies and chefs. Indeed, last year’s winners of the best pintxos in Euskadi will be at the conference accompanying the Basque Culinary Center. These are Edorta Lamo (A Fuego Negro, San Sebastián), Senén González (Sidrería Sagartoki, Vitoria) and Darren Williamson (Bitoque, Bilbao).

The main sponsor of the conference will be the Basque Governments which, by the hand of the Basque Culinary Center, is making a firm commitment to the United States, where, through the Department of Agriculture, it will promote Basque products in the United States under the Euskadi, Taste It brand.

A dozen Basque companies and wine cellars, which will be accompanied by wine cellars from the Rueda Designation of Origen, Institut del Cava, Ribeira del Duero DO, among other companies present under the protection of the ICEX, will make up Spanish business representation.

The Conference

The international CIA Worlds of Flavor Conference is recognised as the most influential conference in the United States and is compulsory for the 700 professionals who buy up all the tickets every year. Prestigious or corporate chefs, executives of hotel chains or restaurants or purchasing managers for cruise ships, casinos, hotels, specialised shops, supermarkets, universities, journalists... In short, a conference that brings together those responsible for defining the culinary trends in the United States; what is bought and what is consumed.

The Culinary Institute of America is an independent non-profit university that teaches diplomas, degrees, masters’ and specific courses on food and gastronomy in the United States and Singapore. Every year, 3000 students study at one of its 4 centres: Hyde Park, (New York), Napa Valley (California), San Antonio (Texas) and Singapore.

The task of promoting Basque and Spanish gastronomy is one of the Basque Culinary Center’s objectives. On its boards it has leading companies such as Grupo Gfor, Grupo Eroski, Grupo Martiko, Heineken España or COVAP.