Le Cordon Bleu Paris - Would I recommend it or not? My final thoughts.....

It's been more than three weeks already since I'm back in The Netherlands. Back from the five week intensive basic cuisine course at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.

Time to look back on these weeks; Although I 'only' did the basic intensive cuisine course, I still would like to make a few comments/suggestions/compliments about 'life' at the Cordon Bleu Paris. These comments are personal, and reflect how I experienced this course.

The intensive basic cuisine course was intensive indeed. Two/three sessions a day, often starting at 8.30. That means leaving home early, have breakfast on the way (cafe), change etc.

Most of the time you have either 2 practicals and a demo a day OR 2 demo's and a practical lesson. Sometimes 'only' one of each. Occasionally, you'd have an evening or a Saturday class, but not that often. All together the basic intensive cuisine consists of 30 demonstrations and 30 practical lessons. On top of that, there is a written exam, a practical exam, a market tour (on a morning, incl. lunch) and an evening 'basic group' dinner together with everybody from basic pastry. As I said: Intensive !

For me there wasn't really much time to relax. Only on the weekends I'd go out to see the sights, but actually I was quite tired every day after all the classes. This is also because the demonstrations are given in French. There is always a translator present in the demo's, and that helps a lot, but still, you also concentrate on the French and that can be quite tiring.

The language; Speaking French or English.
You hear quite often that the French don't want to speak English. Well, let me tell you this - that is absolutely NOT true. Everybody at LCB in Paris speaks English. Some better than others, but everybody does try ! Even the chefs (try to) speak a bit of English. And most chefs did work abroad, so they understand quite a bit of English anyway.


Chefs;
In short: Very nice people, very skilled, very patient and willing to explain things again. However, sometimes they could be a bit more strict in the kitchen I think. It's good to have a laugh every day but sometimes certain students would take advantage of a 'too informal' situation.

Number of people in a class;
Well, our basic intensive cuisine group had only 17 people and during the practical lesson this was split in two. Perfect !

If you're not doing the intensive but the normal 11 weeks course, classes can be overcrowded I hear, but I have no experience with this. I heard that this January 2009 course was full - about a 40-50 people for basic cuisine and around 50 for intermediate cuisine..... that's a lot !
(On top of that there are even more people doing pastry!)

If I have to choose again, I think I'd go for another intensive. The groups are smaller and there is a far more personal approach. And it's cheaper. Housing in Paris is not cheap, so an intensive will cost you only half the amount of money re housing.

Facilities at the school;
I think they were really good. Two demo rooms/kitchens and three kitchens that we worked in. (This is on ground-, first and second floor). And there are more floors in the building with kitchens. There was plenty of pots and pans etc available in the kitchens.

The so called winter garden could do with a bit of new paint/color/atmosphere....
There is a large fridge available in the winter garden for everybody to put in the dishes they made during the day. Officially this is cleaned every day, but..... sometimes you find leftovers from 5 days ago! LCB - please clean the fridge more often!

Some ovens in the practical kitchens should be re-calibrated. They're a bit off... sometimes more than 40degC.



Theft;
This is very,very present. Unfortunately. Theft is present at any school, all over the world, but I sure didn't expect it that present here.
Coats, knife sets, scales, knives, aprons, tea towels.... people can use everything and when you leave something behind (even for a few minutes) - it's gone ! Watch your stuff ! And new knives are expensive.... Put your coat in your locker if you can.
And, surprise, surprise, sometimes food is stolen from the fridge in the winter garden. Sad isn't it...

Recipes;
This can be a long discussion, but in general I'd say the recipes are not the most exciting ones.
Keep in mind that's it all about basics, techniques and traditional French cuisine. It's not about fine dining. But I can honestly say that I've learnt a lot. From cutting techniques, trussing chickens and ducks, using a chinoix (oh yeah !), turning vegetables etc. Also plating the dish was important. Sometimes it was just a waste of a nice piece of meat when you had to poach it.... but that's personal I think...

I've tried quite a few dishes at home already. Some were really good, some needed some improvement. Not all the dishes you see in the demo's can be made at home, but a few of them are worth to try - with some adjustments ! (read: less cream or butter. Or use a different kind of meat/fish).
In general, the classic French cuisine is very rich. Lots of cream, and lots (and I mean lots) of butter. In doubt - reduce the sauce more and add more butter !

Seasoning is always an issue; In general, I think it's way too salty; One advice: don't argue too much with the chefs about this. They'll win the discussion anyway and it's also personal. (and the chef's taste butts are 'gone' or 'off' after all these tasting-years anyway.... (joke!) That makes it easier to understand.)

Ingredients;
Always fresh - no complaints. We always received very good quality meat, fish and vegetables.
BUT..... in our final exam we received really, really poor quality ducks ('Olympic' well trained skinny ducks) and old and very small artichokes to prove our technical skills. Sorry LCB - change this, this is just not done !

Portions;
Well..... portions in practicals were way too big. This is good to learn cooking/preparing, but what would you do with it at the end of class? Most people were staying in a hotel and would throw away everything because they can't reheat it. Others would stay in an apartment on their own - what would they do with 3 huge salmon steaks on day x, 3 beef steaks on day y and 2 liter of soup on day z.... And this goes on and on for 5 weeks...
Most of the time people would throw their food in the bin after a practical. What a waste! Quite often, we gave it to the washing-up guys. Chef suggested this. Most of the time they were quite happy with it. After all, it is/was good food!

Grades/exam etc;
After two weeks you will recieve an Exel sheet with your grades - very accurate - to the 0.001 ! You might not have noticed at all that you were being graded....Well, it is worth nothing ! Everybody is close together; within 0.1 ; If you are sort of last in line - get over it and move on. LCB should stop this way of grading the students. Please don't present the students a list with these grades in class! In our group it caused quite a stir. To some people it's a competition, and being ranked lower than others is difficult for some people. Personally, I think that grading the students should be done more in the open. There was only one chef walking around with the paperwork to grade us during a class, but the others never did it this way. They would grade us afterwards when class was finished. How can they remember every detail.... ?

The written exam is a bit different. Fairly easy, but you need to know a bit of French (cuisine) words. And learn a few complete ingredients lists. A bit overdone, but everybody passes this exam. Tip: learn the full words list (F-English / E -F) from the binder. Also read the 7 recipes you need to know for the written exam VERY carefully (Full detail). don't worry too much - it's not that difficult...

Details about the final practical exam are on my blog. See for yourself! It's either meat or fish... maybe....

Translators;
We had three different translators. All very different people. Sometimes it was quite difficult for some (Asian) people to understand THE TRANSLATOR'S English (!).... And yes, we all had our favorite and not so favorite translator....

Demo/practical set-up;
Demonstrations are given in a special kitchen with a mirror above the worktable. You only have the ingredients list available and you 'make' your recipe by watching what chef does. In like this set-up.
In the demonstration class the whole cuisine group (our class was 17 people) is present, and during the practical there is a maximum of 10 people working in the kitchen.
In short - a good set-up for me.

Housing in Paris;
For me this was very easy. I had a few Euro's to spent and could afford a nice up-market apartment. Some people would stay with a host family. LCB can help out !
Apartments: plenty of web sites available. Start with the tourist information website. On this site you will find plenty of housing links.

Taking photographs in class;
No problem. Even during demonstrations we could take photographs. And during the practicals we took plenty.

Visitors during demonstrations;
LCB never really told us this, but there are quite a lot of (paying) visitors present in a demo-class. Not every day, but often. Once, we had about 6 ladies from the US present - sounded like a henhouse - they just wouldn't shut up!

And camera crews... well, they can be very present during a demonstration and are NOT funny. The last camera crew we had in our class was a camera team from Korea. There was a rude camera-man and at one point we thought the chef would kick him out of his kitchen...
LCB: please tell us up front that we can expect extra people in the demonstrations. And there are rules - even for camera people!

Age difference in the group;
18-50+... Although the average age is younger in the normal 11 weeks course. The intensive tends to attract 'older' people... We had quite a few 40+ people in the group.
I don't think the age difference is a problem. Only when you go out,the choice of cafe/disco/restaurant is a bit different...

Biggest shock during the course; Two of our own class'mates' raiding somebody else's knife-set in the locker room right after the graduation ceremony....

Locker rooms;
In short - the lockers are way too small and sometimes there are not enough lockers available. Luckily, during an intensive period you have the chance to use two lockers (Not allowed). And the locker room is also the changing room.... too small. And bring your own lock!

General behavior in class / alcohol;
Some students are literally drunk in class. Maybe not everybody has noticed it, but this happened quite a few times. (Sometimes they were 'only' asleep after a few beers they had during the break.) In my opinion, they should be banned from 'practical' class or school immediately. Nothing wrong with a beer, but sometimes we saw some 'knife incidents' in our practical....

Recommend LCB or not?
Would I recommend LCB or not? Well, yes and no. It all depends on what you are looking for.
Of course I only did the basic cuisine course and not the full cuisine (yet...), but I will try to make a few comments on the subject;

Our class had 17 different people with different expectations and different cultures and backgrounds.
Some did this to get a job in cuisine, someone was there on a scholarship (or the boss was paying) but most of us were there just for fun. I know, it's not cheap, but most people did the course for fun and just to get better in a (home) kitchen. I think that 5 of us are doing the next intermediate level now. Still, some for fun and some to get a job in cuisine.

LCB is pretty well known all over the world, but I think it has a better/higher status in South-America and the US compared to Europe. Maybe it's easier to get a job in those countries with a LCB diploma. I don't really know about that.

If you are looking for recipes, then you're in the wrong place. It's all about classic French cuisine and learning techniques. Basic cuisine is not a 'recipe'-course.

An intensive course is also a 'high speed' course. If you are looking for more balance, then maybe a normal 'non LCB' cuisine school (3-4 years) could be a better and cheaper option for you. Personally, I would do the LCB training on top top of a normal 'school' training if you want to do something in the cuisine business. LCB always looks goods on a resume.

Yes, we do learn a lot at LCB, but in a professional kitchen it works different I think. You wil start at the bottom of the ladder and work your way up. This can take years. LCB status may help to speed this up - don't really know about this.

Personally, I really, really enjoyed my stay at LCB. And I would definitely do it again ! Part of the whole thing is also being in Paris doing French cuisine at the flagship Cordon Bleu location. That's great! And of course, the type of people in your group is also of big influence - age, personality, intention if they are serious about cooking etc.

For me, this 5 weeks cuisine course - just for fun - was fantastic !

Well, enough for now. If you have any more questions or comments, don't hesitate to send me an Email at : sjoerd.servaas@hetnet.nl

Thank you for all your support and comments during my stay in Paris !
XXX, Sjoerd