The San Diego Culinary Institute is holding an awards ceremony to honor its student culinary competition teams' achievements in the American Culinary Federation (ACF) competition.
The ceremony will take place Monday, March 30 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the US Grant Hotel.
On hand to present the awards Monday evening: Chef Brian Malarky, Owner and Executive Chef of Oceanaire Seafood and "Top Chef" finalist; Chef Richard Sweeney, Executive Chef of Confidential and "Top Chef" competitor, along with other local culinary experts.
These student teams don't compete in just your average cook-off -- they've gone professional.
"It's very unusual for students to enter into competition at the professional level - let alone for them to be competitive," said Chef Urs Emmaneger, founding president of the ACF Chefs and Culinarians of San Diego. "The performance of SDCI students in ACF-sanctioned competition has been really incredible. I'm not aware of any school anywhere that has achieved anything close to what they have done in professional competition."
In two competitions so far this year, students and recent graduates of the San Diego Culinary Institute earned a total of eight medals in professional competitions, including at the international level. Not too shabby.
