VARIETY AT SAIT’S TASTEMARKET
Students strut their stuff to the public
SAIT’s reputation for graduating exemplary chefs, bakers and butchers has increased exponentially over the past few years. The two-year professional cooking program gives students a broad range of skills and includes an internship that shows them how real restaurant kitchens perform. The baking and pastry arts program, also two years long, covers everything from the fundamentals of yeast to nutrition and recipe modification as well as more internships. And the one-year butchery and charcuterie management program, once a hard sell, is now packed with eager students learning about food safety and meat science. All programs offer near 100 per cent employment upon graduation.
The SAIT campus is a great place to learn with an abundance of sparkling kitchens, fine instructors, its own retail outlets and a restaurant — The Highwood. To enhance learning, a few years ago SAIT opened what they call their Culinary Campus on the Plus-15 of Scotia Centre at 230 Stephen Avenue S.W. Open weekdays from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., the campus offers breakfast and lunch options for downtown workers and a high-pressure learning setting for the students. (They offer public cooking classes, too.)
And now SAIT has taken the next step in culinary education by creating a one-year, post-diploma culinary entrepreneurship program for those who want to run their own restaurants, bakeries or culinary shops. To facilitate this program, they’ve opened The Tastemarket at 444 7th Ave. S.W. in Barclay Centre. At 836 square metres (9,000 square feet), it’s composed of four distinct areas — a charcuterie and bar, a patisserie, a flatbread station and a hot line, all open to the public.
The charcuterie area has three glass-fronted coolers where the meats are hung, some, like the prosciutto, for up to a couple years for proper aging. A halfdozen meats such as an elk-cherry salami and a fennel chorizo are on offer at any given time, served on platters with nuts, fruits, chutneys and such. Other cold items such as cheese and housemade pickles and tapenades are available, along with sandwiches built from student-made meats and breads. This area, with 24 dedicated seats, is also licensed for alcohol. (There are dozens of other seats in the main dining area, too.)
The flatbread station features a huge gas-burning Woodstone oven and a half-dozen seats lined up along the bar. The patisserie has marble countertops and glass display cases showcasing gorgeous pastries made at the Culinary Campus a few blocks away and brought over fresh each morning. The hot line features Asian noodle bowls and salads as well as prepared sauces and condiments that are jarred for sale. The food is all prepared by the students on site but it’s kept simple — the focus here is more on management than on the culinary side of the business.
The Tastemarket is open weekdays; the patisserie, where you can also get a good Fratello coffee, is open from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., the bowls and salads are available from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and the flatbreads and charcuterie are served from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. You order and pay at any of the stations ( you can order a flatbread, an Asian bowl, charcuterie and a pastry all at once rather than going to each station) and the food is brought to you.
The Tastemarket courses, taught by SAIT instructors such as chef Bruno Lasage and Patricia Koyich, former owner of Il Sogno, include applied finance, human resources, technology and marketing. They’re the skills needed by the young entrepreneurs to run their businesses. The practical application in the restaurant environment is a key element to the learning environment and gives the students a major leg up when starting their own shops.
SAIT is not alone in encouraging students to become entrepreneurs. Bow Valley College is now in its fifth year of a partnership with RBC Business Accelerator and Repsol Hub for Social Enterprises called Venture Quest. BVC students can apply to the annual competition with fresh business ideas and win cash to help advance them.
This year’s winner was Sara Barreto with an idea for waffles on a stick called Waffle Pops. The concept is a cone-shaped Belgian waffle — on a stick — that is served with fresh fruits, sauces, jams or ice cream as a breakfast food or a snack. Barreto, a recent immigrant from Colombia, opened her first Waffle Pops shop recently in the Market on Macleod (7711 Macleod Trail S.) thanks to the $10,000 first-place prize.
Barreto impressed the competition judges with not only her concept, but with her commitment to hiring single mothers to work in her shop while furthering their education. Look for more Waffle Pops shops to open up around town if the first one proves successful.