News & Events

  • 08
  • Oct2010

ACI Student Wins NRA Scholarship

Congratulations to ACI student Drew Nochta for winning a $2500 academic scholarship from the National Restaurant Association. Drew’s scholarship is sponsored by Rachael Ray’s Yum-o! organization. This scholarship is awarded to outstanding High School students. Drew began the process which included writing several essays at the end of his senior year of high school as he

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  • 08
  • Oct2010

Advanced Baking|10-2010

Advanced Baking | Student projects from 10/8/2010 [gallery link="file"]

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  • 05
  • Oct2010

Beau MacMillan visits ACI Management Class

Beau MacMillan, Executive Chef of Elements (located at The Sanctuary) , and Bill Nassikas, Owner of the The Sanctuary spoke to our Management class today. Chef McMillan, who is on the ACI Advisory Board, has wrapped up taping his first season of “Worst Cooks in America”. He just returned from filming a couple of episodes of

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  • 04
  • Oct2010

Du Jour Tasting Menu | October 6 & 7

Dinner October 6 & 7, 2010 In our continuing effort to train the chefs of tomorrow, Arizona Culinary Institute announces it’s new Tasting Menu. This five (5) course menu will give our students the opportunity to show off their culinary skills with all new flavor pairings, for the minimal cost of $20 per person. You will

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  • 27
  • Sep2010

ACI Welcomes New Basic Culinary Arts Students

Welcome to our incoming culinary students that started classes today. There is a lot of excitement in the air today as a new group of students begin to take their passion for cooking and make their culinary career a reality ! [gallery link="file"]

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  • 27
  • Sep2010

Chef Spotlight | Santos Villarico, CEC, CCE, CPI

Arizona Culinary Institute welcomes Chef Santos Villarico, who recently joined us from Le Cordon Bleu at Scottsdale. Chef Villarico will be teaching our Advanced Cuisine class, which cooks daily for our restaurant guests. Chef Villarico was born in the Phillipines, but moved here 32 years ago. He worked at the Fairmont Princess Resort for seven years

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  • 27
  • Sep2010

ACI Open House | October 9, 2010

Arizona Culinary Institute will be having an "Open House" on Saturday October 9, 2010. Chef Glenn Humphrey, CEC, CCE, and Chef Santos Villarico, CEC, CCE, CPI will be demonstrating "Basic and Advance" techniques on fruit and vegetable carvings. Click here for a short video melon carving1 Open House starts at 10:am and runs until 1:pm Call

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  • 23
  • Sep2010

New Basic Culinary Arts Class Starts Monday 9/27

Classes start at Arizona Culinary Institute on Monday, September 27th. One of the most important skills that you will learn in your new Basics I class, is knife skills. Today, as our August class is nearing the end of their six- week basic training , they were tested on their knife cuts. Chef Sayre was grading

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  • 23
  • Sep2010

Student Profile | Rebekah Quintero

Rebekah Quintero began classes at Arizona Culinary Institute in July. You may have noticed her as our student caretaker of the ACI Herb Garden or volunteering for any number of projects. Rebekah is 19 years old, and she and her husband have a 1 ½ year old daughter. She was home schooled throughout junior high and

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  • 17
  • Sep2010

ACI | Molecular Gastronomy Class

Chef Christopher Wolf, CCC, CCE  instructed a “sold out” Molecular Gastronomy class to students on Saturday, September 11th. Students worked with liquid nitrogen to form both savory and sweet “dippin dot” style frozen treats. The also experimented with spherification by making faux caviar and bombes. Tapioca maltodextrin was used to make a variety of sweet/savory “powders”.

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