Hospitality and Tourism

Overview

In Minnesota's Hospitality & Tourism Career Cluster, the Culinary Artistry Pathway transforms aspiring cooks into skilled, creative chefs. Beginning with Culinary 1 and 2, students master authentic restaurant techniques, including precise knife skills, wood-fire and wok cooking, house-made pasta and breads, butchery, and even molecular gastronomy, where science meets the kitchen. From there, students explore global street foods, competitive baking, and advanced kitchen math, sharpening speed, confidence, and professional plating artistry. The pathway culminates in hands-on leadership experiences, where students design menus, manage kitchens, and approach every challenge with the creativity and mindset of a professional chef.

Culinary Artistry Pathway

Meet Chef Gonzalez

Chef Gonzalez has cooked at the famous Waldorf Astoria in New York City
and The French Laundry, a 3 Michelin star restaurant. He competed on a
team that won Iron Chef America competition. Chef also consulted on the
making of Pixar’s Ratatouille. Now he brings that high-level kitchen
experience into the classroom, teaching students real skills they can use in
culinary jobs or future training.

Course Options

Potential Careers

Executive Chef, Sous Chef, Line Cook, Pastry Chef, Baker, Cake Decorator,
Restaurant Owner, Food Truck Operator, Catering Manager, Personal Chef, Private Event Chef, Culinary Instructor, Test Kitchen Chef, Research and Development Chef, Food Stylist, Recipe Developer, Restaurant Manager, Front-of-House Manager, Hospitality Manager, Event Planner, Banquet Chef, Hotel Chef, Resort Chef, Cruise Ship Chef, Institutional Food Service Manager, Nutrition Services Assistant, Food and Beverage Director, Purchasing Manager, Inventory and Supply Coordinator, Quality Assurance Food Specialist, Artisan Bread Baker, Chocolatier, Confectioner, Butcher, Charcuterie Specialist, Food Photographer, Culinary Content Creator, Pop-Up Restaurant Operator

Culinary Artistry Pathway Instructor

Donald Gonzalez

Dean Lakes Education Center (Shakopee)

Work: (952) 567-8129

All Course Opportunities

Culinary Artistry 1

If you want a class that smells amazing, moves fast, and teaches you to cook for real, this is it. Forget “home ec” this is a chef-driven kitchen where fine dining and art fuse on the plate. In Culinary Artistry 1 you’ll cook your way through global flavors using real restaurant techniques: knife skills, kitchen safety and sanitation, wood-fire cooking, wok-fired noodles, house-made pasta, artisan breads, and from-scratch pizza doughs. Through fast-paced, hands-on labs you’ll learn how to build flavor, plate like a pro, and use kitchen math and recipe costing to create and scale your own dishes.

Culinary Artistry 2

As you advance into Culinary 2, you’ll dive deeper into butchery, smoke and fire, and molecular gastronomy while mastering show-stopping techniques like liquid nitrogen ice cream and hand-pulled noodles, all while sharpening your speed, precision, teamwork, and creative problem-solving to prepare you for real-world
kitchen work, future culinary school, hospitality careers, or a lifetime of confident, seriously good cooking.

Culinary Services: From Dish to Dish

This fun, year-long class modeled for students in Transitions programming builds real-world life skills and job readiness through hands-on kitchen experience.
Students learn kitchen and safety basics, dishwashing and cleaning routines, and introductory food prep like washing produce, measuring, and following picture-
based recipes. Using visual supports, step-by-step checklists, and lots of practice, students develop confidence working in a kitchen while also building teamwork, communication, and time-management skills. The course wraps with career-focused cooking projects and a “lunch service” where students help plan, prepare, and serve a meal, showcasing skills they can use at home or in entry-level food service jobs.

Twin Cities Bake Off: Foundations of Baking

Bake it, decorate it, make it yours. Step into the kitchen like it’s your own baking show. In Twin Cities Bake Off, you’ll learn the art and science behind delicious baked goods, why dough rises, how butter behaves, and what makes the perfect crumb. Students practice core techniques like measuring, mixing, kneading, and piping while creating cookies, bars, quick breads, cupcakes, pastries, and more. Along the way, you’ll experiment with flavors, troubleshoot baking “fails,” and compete in fun classroom bake-off challenges that build confidence and creativity.

Global Foods: A Culinary Journey Through Global Street Food

Grab your passport and your apron, we’re cooking our way around the world. Cook the food of the world, one street at a time, from land to land, and seas to sea. From
Kolkata to Mexico City, this class is for you if you love to eat, explore, and try new flavors. In Global Foods, students travel the globe through recipes while discovering
how geography, climate, culture, religion, and money shape what people eat. You’ll cook street foods and traditional dishes from a variety of countries, compare food traditions, and build your global food IQ while leveling up your kitchen skills.

Sous Chef: Run Your Own Kitchen Field Experience

Think you can handle the heat? Step up as Sous Chef and run the kitchen. Step out of the lab and into the hot seat. In Sous Chef, advanced culinary students take over
day-to-day kitchen operations; planning menus, costing recipes, placing orders, tracking inventory, plating for events, and problem-solving in real time. You’ll design and execute pop-up services or special events, practice front-of-house coordination, and explore high-level careers in hospitality, events, and tourism. This is a fast- paced, project-based capstone where you think like a sous chef, not a student.