Two years ago Disciples Escoffier, the French culinary association launched a partnership with Towngas Cooking Centre to offer a course in traditional French cooking the Disciples Escoffier Diploma in Culinary Arts. Established in France in 1954, and based on a 5,000 menu cookbook published in 1903, the Disciples Escoffier Diploma is an intense and expensive culinary programme, taught locally by chef Vincent Leroux and split into the 3 levels. Each level features 180 hours of study and cooking over three months.
The Basic level ($60,000) teaches the core French cooking techniques, including knifing skills, ingredients and sauce matching, handling of unusual ingredients, as well as dish plating and creativity training. Upon completion of the course and passing the exam you can move onto the Intermediate ($70,000) and Upper ($80,000) levels.
The ability and quality of those able to complete the full course is such that the CEO of the Institut Culiniaire Disciples Escoffier Robert Fontana commented that if he rang a Michelin starred restaurant in France and asked them if they’d employ a course graduate – the restaurant would offer them a trial sight unseen purely based on the person having graduated the course. Application for the February 2017 basic course is now open, contact 2576 1535 for more information.