Culinary Academy and Host Academy are different products at different levels. They are not interchangeable, and they are not feeders for each other. Choose based on what you want to do after.
Host Academy: the entry point for yacht-host careers
Host Academy trains and assesses you for working as a professional yacht host with Quarterdeck. The week mirrors a real charter week and covers the full host role: provisioning, onboard standards, guest experience, service flow, teamwork with the skipper, and keeping everything running smoothly.
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Host Academy assumes a solid cooking starting level and trains the host role on top of it. If your goal is to host yacht weeks, this is the place to start.
Culinary Academy: the level above, for chefs
Culinary Academy is a 7-day high-intensity professional cooking course for chefs ready to push past the basics. The curriculum focuses on flavour, technique, speed, structure, and consistency in real working kitchens. It is the right course if you are aiming for chef roles on yachts, in private villas, in chalets, or in restaurants. It is also the course that lets a working host stand out, with kitchen fundamentals well beyond what Host Academy alone covers.
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We deliver Culinary Academy in two editions, with the same curriculum and standards across both:
Land-based: Fort George, Vis Island, Croatia, in a professional restaurant kitchen.
Yacht-based: onboard a working sailing yacht at destinations selected each season based on demand and conditions, currently the British Virgin Islands.
Two application tracks for Culinary Academy
Career track: for chefs aiming for paid chef work after the course. Career-track applicants need to demonstrate substantive professional kitchen experience or formal training at the application stage. Quarterdeck prioritises career-track Culinary Academy graduates for chef placements through our network.
Personal interest track: for chefs who want serious kitchen skills for themselves, with no career intent. The documentation bar is lower; the one constraint is cohort fit, since the instructor needs the skill range in the room to be teachable.
How to choose
Choose Host Academy if your goal is to work as a yacht host. It is the entry path for that career.
Choose Culinary Academy if you want chef-level kitchen skills, whether to work as a chef professionally (yachts, villas, chalets, restaurants), to elevate your offer as a working host, or to cook at a higher level for yourself.
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Some students do both, in either order, depending on the path they are building.