At Cordon Bleu, Ritz Hotel : Changes at France’s Famous Cooking Schools

Two French-cooking schools--one the oldest, the other the newest--are giving the world’s gastronomic capital yet another culinary lift.

Cordon Bleu, the oldest and most prestigious, has taken on a high-tech image at a new location in a five-story building that once was an infirmary.

The luxurious Ritz Hotel, the newest, is opening its kitchens April 5 to students of haute cuisine.

The cachet of the elegant Right Bank hotel is maintained in the decor of its new basement cooking school, where gleaming white-tiled spaces and hand-painted murals set the tone.

The Cordon Bleu, long situated in cramped quarters in the classy Champ de Mars district under the Eiffel Tower, moved in January to the building on an anonymous corner of the 15th arrondissement in southern Paris.

The school where servants from affluent families long ago watched cooking demonstrations in an amphitheater now offers every high-tech amenity, including video screens.

Despite the new home, tradition at the venerable Cordon Bleu remains intact. The top diploma at the Cordon Bleu is awarded to students who pass a nine-month session. The Ritz school’s top diploma follows a 12-week course.

Hardly a newcomer to fine food, the Ritz has been known for its cuisine since Auguste Escoffier attracted international gastronomes early in the century. It decided to spread its know-how as part of an overall renovation plan started by Mohammed Al-Fayed, the Egyptian entrepreneur who bought the hotel nine years ago.

“We feel we’re offering unique and superior instruction for a private cooking school,” said Gregory Usher, an American who left the Cordon Bleu to take over the Ritz school’s administration.

The courses are to be supervised by three of the Ritz’s own chefs, all winners of the top professional award, Meilleur Ouvrier de France. Most daily courses will be handled by two chefs with credentials from prestigious French restaurants. One, Andre Guillut, perfected his English while working at restaurants like l’Orangerie and Ma Cuisine in Los Angeles.

The up-to-date equipment includes permanently cooled pastry marbles, the latest in ovens, freezers and mixers. The hotel’s meat smoker will be used for charcuterie courses, and video outlets are available for taping recipes.

Students can browse in a reference library, taste wine with the Ritz’s sommelier, and then change and shower after the course in a special area.

Across the Seine at Cordon Bleu, in business since 1896, it’s a whole new world.

Spanking clean in light grays and blues, today’s big-scale school includes two demonstration rooms, four huge cooking and pastry rooms and a beautiful garden.

Equipment includes convection ovens, pastry-rising ovens and huge dough-kneaders, plus special machines for a new course on vacuum-packing and cooking--to be taught by Patrick Martin, the 1987 winner of the French National Cuisine and Pastry trophy.

“We’re still emphasizing traditional French cuisine,” said Robin Cahill, a Cordon Bleu graduate and its spokeswoman. “But in our expanded facilities just about everything is new.”

The overwhelming majority of Cordon Bleu students are from abroad--about 30% American and 20% Japanese, said Cahill.

While the Ritz plans English translations in all courses, the Cordon Bleu still teaches its advanced courses in French.

Financing for the modernization came from the Pages group, headed by Andre Cointreau, which bought the school in 1981.

Intermediate students at the Ritz may choose a 1- to 6-week course of practical sessions and demonstrations at a cost in French francs of about $800 a week. The Ritz’s highest-level Auguste Escoffier course, a 12-week session, costs about $10,000.

Cordon Bleu’s main three 12-week courses comprise a cycle of “basic” through “superior” at a cost of about $4,200 each.

To get the coveted Cordon Bleu Grand Diplome, students now spend nine months, reduced from 12, in intensive cooking and pastry courses preparing for the big exam, at a cost of $19,000.

“We’re also offering new intensive four-day practical and demonstration sessions,” ranging from charcuterie to regional cuisine and costing about $500, said Cahill.

A visitor to Paris who wants to compare the big-school ambiance of the Cordon Bleu with the tonier Ritz can attend demonstrations at either one for less than $35 each.