If you’re interested in becoming a chef, one of the best routes to the toque is to get a professional culinary degree and master the building-block skills you’ll need to succeed. For that, Boston has several excellent options. In addition to Newbury College (www.newbury.edu), the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts (www.cambridgeculinary.com), and Boston University (www.bu.edu/foodandwine), Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts (www.bostonculinaryarts.com) is coming on strong. The two-year professional school, an outpost of the Parisian academy where Julia Child got her start, is housed in Cambridge’s gorgeous Athenaeum Building, which has a dozen or so gleaming teaching kitchens stocked with every high-tech tool and toy a chef could savor. The school now has 240 students in its 15-month degree program and is ramping up to 450. It’s open enrollment, and new classes begin every six weeks. And good news for non-chefs: in March, Cordon Bleu will open student restaurant Technique to the public.
Out of the basement and into the big time, Tony Maws’s Craigie Street Bistrot has become Craigie On Main. Befitting its new Central Square location, the reincarnation has a full bar, parking, and function rooms, and serves brunch, lunch, and dinner. Expect to see some of the same “funky stuff” recycled from the old menu, including the ever-newsworthy (and really good!) Chef’s Whim.
