Chef School

"Chef School" II picks up where the story of the previous season leaves off. In first year, the students were grounded in the foundations of classical cookery; now they are forced to make the leap from cook to apprentice chef. Some of them can’t.

Each night, the students take over “The Old Prune”, the venerable Stratford restaurant that caters to well-heeled theatregoers in the summer, and the chef school’s “dinner club” of paying customers in the school season. Out of the shelter of the classroom, these dinners are a real-life training ground where everything and anything can happen. Each night, a different student takes over as head chef, while other group members fill out the roles of the classical kitchen brigade, the system used throughout the world in professional kitchens.

Under the watchful eye of chef instructors Neil Baxter or Bryan Steele, the students execute elaborate menus, which week after week become more and more complex. They master classical Italian and French bistro fare in the first part of the year, and then move on to the cuisines of North American chefs, from Alice Waters to Todd English and Nobu, and finally work directly under the supervision of internationally recognized chefs such as Michael Statlander, David Lee and Jon Gushue. In the final weeks, the competition to impress industry leaders who could make or break careers is mind numbing. (Source: http://www.foodtv.ca/ontv/titledetails.aspx?titleid=111988)