How well you prepare in the weeks leading up to the course shapes how much you take from the week itself. Other schools run twelve-week programmes to build the same foundations. Culinary Academy is one week of intensive practice with working chefs. The trade is explicit: the more you arrive with already in your hands, the more time the instructor spends lifting you toward private chef standards rather than catching up on fundamentals.
Once accepted, you will receive the full Culinary Academy Pre-Course Preparation Guide by email. The summary below covers the essentials.
Three weeks before you fly
Knife cuts, every day, twenty minutes. Buy a sack of carrots and onions. Drill slice, dice, brunoise, julienne. Time yourself. The kitchen will not slow down for you in week one of the course; the chef with sharp cuts is the chef with time to think about flavour.
Two weeks before
Pick three components from the curriculum and make them at home:
One stock: chicken, vegetable, fish, or brown beef. Made from bones, trim, and aromatics. Simmered slow, never boiled.
One mother sauce or emulsion: hollandaise, beurre blanc, mayonnaise, vinaigrette, or béchamel.
One dough: a single enriched dough you can turn into focaccia, flatbread, pizza, or dinner rolls.
Note what worked, what did not, and what you would change. Bring those notes. The instructor will recognise them as a signal of a serious applicant.
Also in this window, run a 90-minute prep block. Pick three dishes you would serve at a small dinner party. Write a prep list with timings to a 19:30 service. Cook them on a Sunday afternoon. Note where the list got it wrong. The goal is not the food; it is the rhythm of writing, prepping, and plating to the clock.
One week before
Run a market-shop-no-plan day. Buy whatever looks best, with a budget. Come home and cook lunch and dinner from what you bought, plus what is already in your kitchen. No recipe lookups. The discomfort of cooking without a plan is exactly the muscle the course is here to build.
Plate a single ingredient five different ways across the week (a tomato, a roasted carrot, a piece of grilled fish). Photograph each one. Note which felt finished and which felt unfinished. By the fifth version your hand starts to reach for the right finisher (acid, salt, fat, fresh herb, or crunch) without you thinking about it.
Three days before
Sharpen your knife. Pack your kit. Re-read the Pre-Course Preparation Guide. Write three questions to ask your instructor on Day 1.
Logistics to confirm
Travel insurance with medical cover.
Friday-night accommodation booked near the course location.
Return travel booked from Friday evening or Saturday morning.
Knife kit packed in checked baggage with knife guards or a roll. Loose blades in luggage cause grief at security.
Kitchen workwear: chef jackets or plain white t-shirts, dark trousers, an apron, two side towels minimum, closed-toe non-slip shoes you can stand in for ten hours.
Phone with at least 5 GB free for the week's photos, charged power bank, cable.
Mental preparation
Cooking under pressure is mostly an attitude test. You will burn something. You will plate one short. You will run late on a sauce. Every student does. The chefs who get the most out of the week share three traits: curiosity (they ask all week, even when they think they know), humility (they take feedback as a gift, not a wound), and composure (they recover from mistakes calmly without blaming anyone).