As you are looking for the best chef school, you should consider your needs and what you want from your cooking classes. You should think about what area you want to work in as a chef, and be sure that whatever schools you are looking at will offer you the chance to focus on that field before you are finished. Finding a chef school that is accredited by a major accrediting firm or that is associated with a group that indicates excellence in the industry, such as Le Cordon Bleu, can also help you make sure you find the best school possible.
A chef school is a place that teaches a person how to become a professional chef. While offered classes can potentially be taken by someone interested in becoming a better cook for personal reasons, the cost of chef school typically deters casual enrollment. The classes offered usually revolve around various aspects of cooking, and students learn how to prepare and cook food for service at a professional level. If you are interested in this type of program, you should look for schools that can match your interests and desires.
You might want to start off by considering what type of chef you would ultimately like to become. If you think you would prefer working as a line chef in a busy kitchen, with the ultimate goal being to open your own restaurant, then you would want to choose a chef school that can offer that kind of training to you. This should include some courses in managing a business within the hospitality industry, so you are prepared to open your own restaurant in the future.
On the other hand, if being a pastry chef, baker, or other more specialized type of chef interests you more, then you might want to look for a school that offers those specialized courses as well. You may, of course, find that your interests change while you take classes and that you want to pursue a different specialization. Knowing what you want at the start can help you move in the right direction though.
It can also be very helpful to look for a chef school that has considerable accreditation or is affiliated with a prestigious cooking tradition. Among the most immediately recognizable industry standards for accrediting is affiliation with Le Cordon Bleu, which has a sustained reputation for excellence within the industry. Other forms of accreditation, however, can be just as useful as long as you do a little research. Be sure you look into the group that accredited any potential chef school you are interested in, to ensure that the group itself has a strong reputation.
