The Art of Cooking Debuts at the MACC’s Summer Teen Immersive

What’s a chef’s most important kitchen tool?

We recently posed that question to Chef Anthony Mandriota, chair of the culinary arts department at Nashville’s Nōssi College of Art and Design. The query clearly caught the master chef off guard. Judging from the look on his face, you might think we asked him to pick his favorite child.

Chef Anthony, a tall, lean New Yorker who sports a stylish ponytail, fingered the cutting edge of his knife and cast a furtive glance at his high-tech knife sharpener. He then proceeded to state the obvious.

“You can have the sharpest knife in the entire world, but that’s not enough,” he said softly in a barely detectable Queens accent. “Without a great range oven, anything you cook will likely fail.”

As it just so happens, Chef Anthony’s industrial kitchen at Nōssi is equipped with four extraordinary range ovens, each with enough BTUs to cook an entire herd of cattle. The kitchen also boasts equally remarkable deck ovens, a dough sheeter and, in Chef Anthony’s words, “every delicious spice known to man.”

Teens enrolled in the MACC’s first-ever summer cooking camp will get to use all of these tools and more. The camp, called Savory Sensations, will run June 17 to 21 at Nōssi College. This immersive class will introduce students ages 13 and up to the basic techniques of cooking. Topics such as sautéing, grilling, braising and roasting will all be covered. Of course, Nōssi is an art school, so the importance of plate presentation will also be stressed.

“Presentation is crucial,” says Chef Anthony. “We eat with our eyes first.”

Students will prepare a full-course meal every day. Sample menus will include chicken breast and corn bread on day one. Young chefs will prepare pork tenderloins in lemon sauce, glazed carrots and au gratin potatoes on day two.

“We’ll end every class with dessert, because obviously that’s what kids love,” says Chef Anthony with a playful grin.

For his part, Chef Anthony loves every aspect of cooking. Indeed, he was born to the profession. He was introduced to the art of cooking by his grandmother Josephine Mandriota. “She taught me that if you want to be a great cook, you always have to use the best ingredients.”

Trained in the classic tradition of French cooking, Chef Anthony spent 25 years working in kitchens. “Being a head chef is hard work,” he says. “You’re the first person to arrive and the last person to leave.”

But in addition to being a cooking professional, Chef Anthony also possessed a deep desire to teach. His father had been a professor at Hunter College in New York. He wanted to follow a similar path.

For Chef Anthony, that path naturally led to Nashville. In recent years, Nashville has evolved into an “It City.” Nearly 17 million tourists visited the city in 2023. They brought with them both their dollars and appetites. Suddenly, the “It City” couldn’t find enough trained chefs to staff its burgeoning high-end restaurant scene.

Nashville didn’t have a culinary program to train these chefs. But it did have a great art school in Nōssi College of Art. About four years ago, Chef Anthony approached Nōssi’s [now] President Cyrus Vatandoost about starting a culinary arts program.

“When Chef Anthony came to me asking if I was interested in starting a culinary arts degree program, all I could think of was, ‘that sounds expensive,’” says Vatandoost. “But he explained the void of homegrown chefs in this town and his vision of the type of program Nashville needs. I quickly realized he had a pulse on this city’s food scene. It became a no-brainer for me.”

Not willing to do anything half-way, Vatandoost spared no expense in creating one of the best industrial kitchens in Nashville. Obviously, that’s helped Chef Anthony recruit top talent for his program.

He’s quick to note, however, that he’s not interested in recruiting your typical casual dining cook. He’s looking for budding chefs who possess a true entrepreneurial spirit, the sort of professionals who will open Nashville’s next great restaurant. Chef Anthony is convinced that Nōssi is the best place to train the next generation of master chefs.

“Nōssi students concentrate on everything from filmmaking and photography to culinary arts and graphic design,” says Chef Anthony. “When you’re surrounded by 350 other creative minds, you’re bound to succeed.”

NOTE: All photos by MACC Education Director Drew Kirk