Culinary schools provide instruction in several settings, including classrooms, kitchens, and, depending on the school, vineyards. Practical coursework is performed primarily in teaching kitchens, although most programs also require a student-chef to take courses in a school-operated restaurant towards the completion of her program. Classes taught in the kitchen include culinary skills, garde manger (cold preparations), baking and pastry, international cuisine and wine and beverage studies. The courses alternate between the kitchen and the classroom. For instance, a student-chef will complete a baking and pastry I course, then take the classroom-based food ecology course, then return to the kitchen for baking and pastry II. The programs are organized progressively; for example, a student must successfully complete culinary skills I and II before moving on to the garde manger.
Baking and pastry chefs are primarily taught in the school's boulangerie and patisserie, or bakery and pastry shop. Baking and pastry students must also take survey courses in general cookery, such as culinary skills I. A comprehensive baking and pastry program will have boulangerie-based classes in baking principles, pastry fabrication, baking and pastry skill development, baking ingredients and equipment technology, basic and classical cakes, confectionary art, sugar work and contemporary desserts. Classroom-based courses include food safety, nutrition and baking mathematics.
Culinary schools are increasingly offering hospitality management programs, all the way to the master's level. Fundamental management courses are part of the core curricula of most culinary arts and baking and pastry programs. These classes include kitchen management, customer service, and computers in food businesses. Advanced studies in hospitality management include courses in cafe operations, contemporary hospitality and service management, controlling costs, food purchasing, economics, financial management, human resources management, marketing and promoting food, and psychology of human behavior.
Chefs must also take liberal arts classes to attain an associate's or bachelor's degree in culinary arts, hospitality management or baking and pastry. The number of credit hours required varies among schools, but the subjects commonly include written and oral communications, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and physical science.