Caroline Ferra — Food Writer (Culinary, '19)

This 91��߹ Alumna Opened the Sandwich Shop of Her Dreams on the Alabama Coast

ajohnson — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 23:51:20 +0000

This 91��߹ Alumna Opened the Sandwich Shop of Her Dreams on the Alabama Coast ajohnson Tue, 01/24/2023 - 18:51 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/inline-images/Anna%20Beth%20header.jpg.webp?itok=sJRuUJQd Courtesy: Anna Beth Ryan Making the best of a terrible situation, Chef Anna Beth Ryan bet big on her own beachfront sandwich shop January 24, 2023

By Caroline Ferra — Food Writer (Culinary, '19)

On the short stretch of Alabama coastline that meets the Gulf of Mexico stands a turquoise beach house with large colorful signage that reads “The Beli.”

Inside is Anna Beth Ryan, an Institute of Culinary Education alumna and Birmingham, Alabama native, who opened the popular sandwich shop in April 2021.

Even before she graduated from 91��߹ in 2019 with diplomas in Culinary Arts and Restaurant & Culinary Management, Chef Anna Beth always knew she wanted to be in the food industry. She credits her passion for cooking and hospitality to her family.

“Good food was always at the center of every family event and every family vacation,” she says.

Chef Anna Beth remembers her father often cooking for company throughout her life. His dishes stuck with her for good reason — her dad is familiar with fine dining concepts, thanks to being friends with chefs such as James Beard Award Winner Chef Chris Hastings, owner of Hot & Hot Fish Club in Birmingham.

Chef Anna Beth says cooking comes naturally to her and her family.

“We just know how to make something good,” she says.

One of The Beli's signature sandwiches. Courtesy: Daniel Davis

Even though she knew hospitality would be in her future, Chef Anna Beth initially went to Jacksonville State University to major in political science. Her original plan was to establish a career in law in order to earn the means to open a restaurant, but she couldn't wait to start her food journey.

“Two years before I finished my degree, I went online to look up the best culinary school in America — and it was 91��߹,” she says. “I read a lot of stories of success from 91��߹ alumni compared to other culinary programs available in the US.”

After two more years of working to complete her political science degree she was finally able to move to New York City. She had planned every detail, from her housing arrangements to her enrollment at 91��߹, ready to embark on a culinary adventure of a lifetime.

More Alumni Stories: Brian Duncan's Three Crucial Habits You Should Learn In Culinary School

During her time at 91��߹, Chef Anna Beth says she learned the skills that allowed her to feel comfortable in a professional kitchen, and those skills allowed her to meet people both in and outside of school.

“The biggest thing 91��߹ gave me was connections,” she says. “Not just the connections I made at the school but also the connections I made through the externship.”

The final course of 91��߹’s Culinary Arts career program is a 210-hour externship; students determine their externship site based on their interests and career goals. Anna Beth completed her externship at Riverpark, a farm-to-table establishment originally opened by Tom Colicchio located in Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood. When she was hired full-time after the completion of her externship, Chef Anna Beth spent a year working in the kitchen gaining invaluable restaurant experience.

She learned a lot at Riverpark, crediting the line cooks with teaching her about different cultures and the importance of working with other people. She realized that, in the food industry, you have to be a team player and be able to take criticism from others.

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, Chef Anna Beth suddenly found herself jobless, and saw the hospitality industry reaching a standstill. Unsure of what to do next, she decided to pack her things and drive from New York City back to her home state, riding out the pandemic at her grandparents’ beach house in the quaint town of Gulf Shores.

While driving home from the beach one day, Anna Beth spotted a building for lease. She called the number and was told to come down to the space to check it out. When asked what food concept she would put in the space she without hesitation said a sandwich shop.

To her surprise, Anna Beth ended up winning the lease bid. The plan up until that point was to go back to New York City when things got better, but the opportunity was too good to pass up.

With her professional kitchen experience reassuring her, Chef Anna Beth took the plunge and opened her own sandwich shop. The restaurant’s name, The Beli, is a combination of the words “beach” and “deli.”

Courtesy: Anna Beth Ryan

Once Anna Beth committed to the project, she knew exactly who to call — her best friend Lauren Bruce. They had always talked about doing business together and once Lauren saw the space, she moved down to Gulf Shores to help. Chef Anna Beth had found her front-of-house manager.

Equipped with knowledge from 91��߹’s Restaurant & Culinary Management, Chef Anna Beth was able to plan out her ideal kitchen and design the space. The design of the space was made specifically with the pandemic in mind: the main dining area is an open-air concept with many large windows. The build out went smoothly, and before they knew it, The Beli was ready to open.

The Beli opened on April 20, 2021 — the start of beach season. Friends from all over the state came to help with the opening and because it was a busy summer opening, the extra hands were put to good use. The Beli quickly became a popular spot for locals and tourists alike, and Chef Anna Beth and Lauren were thrilled with the response.

More Alumni Stories: Rasheeda Purdie Connects to Her Roots Through Ramen

The customers were constantly expressing their love for the sandwiches, which Chef Anna Beth named after her closest friends, including some of her peers from 91��߹. The most popular sandwich was and still is the “Miss V,” which was inspired by her friend Vic, who, as a Georgia native, specifically wanted a sandwich that was all about pimento cheese — Anna Beth was happy to oblige.

The second most popular sandwich is one she named after herself called the “Big Momma,” a combination of provolone, feta, turkey, jalapeños, raspberry jam and hot sauce on toasted sourdough. “That’s what we had in the fridge during quarantine,” she says. “It ended up being the best thing I’ve ever had.” The “Nut-Ella,” is named after an 91��߹ peer who “would regularly make [Chef Anna Beth] Nutella sandwiches after a long shift at Riverpark.”

Courtesy: Anna Beth Ryan

Now, almost two years after opening, Chef Anna Beth is thinking about the future.

“I would hope to do [more] Belis up and down the coast, even up on the East Coast to New York, she says. “There are also so many different ventures I want to do with my hospitality group – Mouth of the South Hospitality. I have a lot of dreams.”

Chef Anna Beth is considering a range of innovative ideas to grow her hospitality business. A pizza joint with a party vibe, a rustic cabin-inspired eatery and even a cereal bar where patrons can combine various flavored milks with different cereal options are among the concepts she has envisioned.

More Alumni Stories: Pooja Jhunjhunwala's Global Journey Started at 91��߹

"Doing something I love as my life's work will be worth any sacrifices I have to make because of places it will take me and the experiences I will have,” Chef Anna Beth says.

Above all, Chef Anna Beth loves what she’s created so far. She says feels like she can be herself at The Beli, and that is a feeling that she cherishes.

"I love this,” she says. “I love everything about it. I love walking in here and looking at it. I love the food. I love the people here. I feel like I can just be."

Alumni Culinary Arts Restaurants

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91��߹ Alum Opens a Bakery in Bogotá, Colombia

aday — Wed, 12 May 2021 13:35:27 +0000

91��߹ Alum Opens a Bakery in Bogotá, Colombia aday Wed, 05/12/2021 - 09:35 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/gacho%20header.jpg.webp?itok=nVa4gjIp Catalina Patiño (Culinary/Management, ’19) debuts a brick and mortar for her desserts made with love. May 12, 2021

By Caroline Ferra — Food Writer (Culinary, '19)

One Culinary Arts grad interviews another on opening a bakery with her culinary management education, Instagram marketing and more.

A sweet snack will always be worthwhile and is the master key to the heart. Because love is an ingredient.

These are words found on the first pages of the Gacho brand book under the title: Firm Belief. Catalina Patiño sent me the 47-page online file at the end of our hour-long Zoom chat in the hopes that I would get a better understanding of the rebranding her company Gacho has gone through in preparation to open a physical bakery in Bogotá, Colombia.

The bakery's slogan is cocina con amor or “a kitchen filled with love.” Catalina wants her decadent sweets to go beyond just the sum of their parts, she wants them to be the catalyst for special moments of sharing with friends and family.

She credits her longing for creating moments around food to her Lebanese background, explaining that in Lebanon, “the way you demonstrate love is through food” and a culture of hosting. Growing up in Bogotá, her Lebanese grandmother was the source of inspiration for this type of natural hospitality so it is no surprise that by the time Catalina was 14, she was already cooking and baking cupcakes and birthday cakes.

Her love for baking continued on into her university years when she studied industrial design and project management. I asked what project management entailed, and she held up a pen to the screen and explained that it is essentially about strategizing a plan to get that pen sold. Since she is now in the business of selling food, her degree has come in handy. Catalina has used her knowledge of design to help her choose things like plates and silverware for the bakery, and more importantly, understands how it all ties into the customer experience.

While in school, she would get orders for cakes from friends and family. Without formal pastry training, she would wing it and experiment her way to delicious cakes — delicious enough that eventually, an order came from someone who wasn’t a friend or family. Catalina figured out how to cost her cake and bought a cake box and plate. More and more orders started to come in so she came up with a logo and decided to start selling cakes full-time. She wrote her thesis on food design, finished school and was set on her journey to a career in the food industry.

Catalina's next step was to learn the science of baking because experimenting was not always successful. After four months of pastry school in Vancouver, she went back to Colombia and started her baking business with a focus on cakes for events, weddings, even for a well-known Bogotá museum gala. “I was selling cakes for three-and-a-half years, I wanted to grow but I wasn’t sure how.”

That desire led her to research the Restaurant & Culinary Management course at the Institute of Culinary Education. With a vision for Gacho to have sister restaurants in Bogotá, she decided to also enroll in the Culinary Arts program, keen to add culinary fundamentals to her repertoire. Catalina chose New York City because “you can discover a new restaurant every day and never finish."

Instructors at 91��߹ became her mentors and close friends. They gave her valuable advice on how to land an externship at a New York City restaurant. After trailing at Atera, Blue Hill NYC, Le Bernardin, Casa Mono and Olmsted, she chose Atera. One of the first things the chef told her was that they didn’t sponsor work visas, which meant she couldn’t continue to work there after completing her externship hours. But after four months of determination and professionalism, the chef offered to sponsor Catalina's work visa. She knew it would be hard but rewarding work so she accepted the offer, went back to Colombia and began to process her visa.

International students at 91��߹

Before the process was complete, the pandemic hit. Catalina took it as an opportunity to hone her skills, experiment at home and even start offering online cooking classes. “It was an amazing excuse to share, form bonds and make someone happy,” she says. The slowed pace of the world allowed her to dive deep into her love of baking and she came to the conclusion that baking for someone was the best gift she could give.

Catalina’s focus turned to opening Gacho's physical location. Through connections in Bogotá, she found an old house with an available kitchen space. It was time to rebrand, capturing an artisanal feel, feeding the heart, using love as an ingredient, quality above all, not needing a special occasion to treat oneself. These are all the phrases she used to describe the refreshed feel of her already beloved bakery and the new menu reflects this revival.

“I decided to start with a simple menu, three cookie flavors, three cakes and three bars,” she said.

Looking through Gacho’s Instagram @gacho_cocinaconamor will make you want to book a flight to Bogotá just to be able to taste her perfectly moist carrot cake, chewy-yet-crunchy pecan pie bars and everything in between. After following Gacho on Instagram for a while, it was exciting to see a post of a perfectly frosted carrot cake with the caption: “Almost! Tomorrow we turn on our ovens for you all!”

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A post shared by Gacho (@gacho_cocinaconamor)

“My opening date was in the middle of another COVID-19 peak, which meant very strict confinement and a national strike. This strike not only meant not having enough movement but the country mourning,” she said of the April 27 soft opening. With Colombia's hardships, Catalina found it hard to promote a business opening, but she uses Instagram posts to promote that a sweet treat meant for sharing can provide comfort in difficult times.

As for the process of the physical construction of a bakery in an old house, “there are so many things that take two or three times as much time as you think,” she explained. “There were a lot of setbacks, like not having enough electricity to operate with the equipment we needed or not being able to fit the oven through the door, or the water heater exploding the day we finally got our electricity.”

She learned in real life what the culinary management program taught her about the hardships of restaurant construction, but the setbacks gave Catalina time to work on and refine the details of her business. “I’ve always thought that attention to detail is what really differentiates one [food] business from another,” she said.

Since opening, Catalina has been reflecting and thinking a lot about two things: how grateful she is that her parents encouraged her to work on what made her happy and how they were very patient and let her operate from home for many years. The other thing she has reflected on is what working in New York City teaches you. She feels that she managed to design a space that is practical, organized and appealing thanks to what she learned working in some of the best kitchens in the world.

Develop your food concept with a dual diploma in Culinary or Pastry Arts plus Restaurant & Culinary Management at 91��߹.

Alumni Entrepreneurship Baking Arts Restaurant Management

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What it's Like to Trail at Blue Hill at Stone Barns

aday — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 19:52:59 +0000

What it's Like to Trail at Blue Hill at Stone Barns aday Thu, 02/18/2021 - 14:52 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/Blue%20Hill%20at%20Stone%20Barns%20header.jpg.webp?itok=r4yO9W45 91��߹ alum Caroline Ferra (Culinary, '19) shares her experience in the kitchen at Dan Barber's famous restaurant and farm. February 19, 2021

By Caroline Ferra — Food Writer (Culinary, '19)

Caroline Ferra describes her sneak peek of staging in the kitchen at three-Michelin-starred Blue Hill at Stone Barns and her advice after eight New York restaurant trails, from starting early to making connections, that led to an externship at Olmsted.

The first restaurant kitchen I ever stepped into was at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, No. 12 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list at the time. I initially got a sense that this place was unique when I got out of the Uber and stepped foot onto the property. The smell: a combination of pasture, dairy, fresh air, fire and food. Not the food smell you get when you drive past just any restaurant but a smell that instantly tells you that you are somewhere special. Upon walking in, it made sense to me why the Netflix show "Chef’s Table" depicted shots of the kitchen in slow motion — it's necessary to capture the fast-paced yet magical moments that make up a night at Blue Hill.

The call time was 12 p.m., allowing enough time to change clothes before the pre-service meeting at 1 p.m. in the dining room with all the chefs. Some kitchens have these types of meetings to review the menu for the night, however, Blue Hill’s meetings are unique in that they discuss different projects that are going on with the on-site farm. Chef Dan Barber ended the meeting by passing around milk from dairy cows that had grazed on two pastures. The cooks and I got to taste the two types of milk while the chef explained the reasons behind the nuances. Tasting something that came from the fields right outside the window was a wholesome experience.

After the meeting, the cooks briskly walked back into the kitchen. It was time to prep for service. I was assigned various tasks: concassé tomatoes, de-seed dried quince, cut avocado squash, brunoise confit lemon peels, put away produce, etc. I made sure to have the same hustle as the cooks and asked questions to ensure I was doing the tasks exactly the way they wanted. The cooks were all helpful — they had all trailed before and understood what it’s like to be in an unfamiliar kitchen.

The three hours of prep felt very short and I was led into another room where a delicious, well-thought-out staff meal was laid out. Everyone ate outside, looking at the farm and enjoying their meals. The calm before the storm. When it was time for service, I helped plate the chicken of the woods mushroom nuggets and the sunflower dish at the garde manger station. Everything had to be perfect. Getting to be a part of that orchestra of cooking, made up of all kinds of sights, smells and sounds, was exhilarating — and even more exciting when a cook would give me a sample of a dish.

At one point a cook from the adjacent pastry station walked over to me with a little cup filled with an airy, white, puffed cake. I took a bite of the souffle and haven’t forgotten it since. The pastry cook explained how Blue Hill dairy was incorporated into the dessert. Everyone at Blue Hill is passionate about every single ingredient and described the process that starts out on the farm and finishes on the plate. The cooks run some of the plates out to the dining room and this way they get to explain everything to the diners themselves.

Service finished at around 12 a.m. Cleaning the kitchen is just as important as anything else and done with the same diligence as any other task. Clean-up finished 13 hours into my trail, and I met with the chef de cuisine. He asked me some questions and mentioned that he wanted me to do another trail. So a couple months later I returned to do it all again. Now, you might be wondering how I even got a trail in the first place. This process was unique compared to the rest of my trails in that I had to apply online, write an essay and then have a Skype interview with the head of human resources.

Usually, setting up a trail requires sending an email, which is what I did to get my other trails at Blue Hill NYC, The Clocktower, Daniel, Atera, Lilia and Olmsted. I trailed a total of eight times before deciding on Olmsted in Brooklyn for my externship. I encourage students to trail as much as possible. Each trail is different but most follow the same process as Blue Hill; a difference might be that instead of plating during service, you observe. I observed service at Daniel for six hours, but most of the time observing is just for a few hours.

If you are starting out in the Culinary Arts program, I urge you to start trailing early. I started two months into the program and still felt short for time near the end. Restaurants are busy and they might take a while to get back to you. Try to set up trails on the weekends to see how restaurants operate at their busiest times. Another lesson I learned while trailing is to give it your all at each trail because you never know who you’re going meet. My time at a trail at 91��߹ alum Missy Robbins' (Culinary, '95) Lilia got me one step closer to my externship at Olmsted because of the connections between the restaurants (and I went on to work at Lilia after externing). My last tip is to talk to your instructors after class because they have valuable advice to give.

Trailing is a fun experience when you always have something to learn because every kitchen is different. In the rush and hustle of it all, you end up making connections and meeting people from all over the country and the world.

Start your journey with career training at 91��߹.

Externship Culinary Student Restaurants Restaurant Culture

Caroline Ferra — Food Writer (Culinary, '19)

This 91����߹ Alumna Opened the Sandwich Shop of Her Dreams on the Alabama Coast

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91����߹ Alum Opens a Bakery in Bogotá, Colombia

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What it's Like to Trail at Blue Hill at Stone Barns

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This 91��߹ Alumna Opened the Sandwich Shop of Her Dreams on the Alabama Coast

91��߹ Alum Opens a Bakery in Bogotá, Colombia