Culinary Arts & Catering
Studying Culinary Arts & Catering at FVCC introduces you to hands-on learning with esteemed chefs and real-life experiences through the Culinary Institute of Montana. The outstanding culinary program will set you on a path for a career in culinary arts, catering, and in the restaurant business.
Upcoming Culinary Activities
- Modernist Dinners 11/1 and 11/15: Culinary students design and serve chef-inspired meals in the FVCC instructional kitchen
- Holiday Dinner 12/13: FVCC's Executive Chef Andy Blanton and culinary program students serve up a five-course traditional holiday meal
- Thanksgiving Pies for Scholarships: Let us do the Thanksgiving baking this year with your choice of pumpkin, apple cranberry, or pecan pie (or all three!)
Get Started
- Apply to FVCC
- Contact Culinary Admissions Advisor Mandee Johnson at mjohnson@fvcc.edu or 406.756.3860.
- Confirm pre-requisites and placement testing with Mandee after submitting application to FVCC.
- Schedule interview with Culinary Instructional Team by contacting Chef Manda Hudak at mhudak@fvcc.edu or 406.756.3932. Review and submit Scheduling, Working & Physical Demands sheet for interview.
- Consider applying for Culinary Only scholarships
Culinary Institute of Montana
Catering Degree
At the Culinary Institute of Montana, you can Taste the Difference.
Our program features a clinical focus on catering event production - the profit center of most food and beverage businesses.
If a food and beverage business of any sort is able to cater well, that business will substantially solidify its profit margin. Students are immersed in the entire catering business cycle, including:
- client relations
- event concept development
- culinary menu development
- event concept pitch
- guest relations
- technical culinary production
- banquet service
Catering Events
Students at the Culinary Institute of Montana participate in a wide variety of events throughout their education. A few weeks into the curriculum students are able to experience the potential their culinary & catering degree can offer them.
Catering events are a hallmark of our curriculum rather than just one or two restaurant concepts at the end of a typical occupational culinary program. Our students produce intimate gourmet dinners in settings ranging from private homes to gala dinner events. Also, it is a fun way to learn!
Chef's Table
American regional cuisine is the focus of Chef’s Table, where students learn the five elements that contribute to the development of a cuisine. This includes Indigenous foods and traditions, the cultural diversity and attitudes of our first and second settlers, geographical effects and economic viability.
Offered in the second semester of the freshman year, this course is as exciting for students as it is for the lucky guests from the local community who reserve seats at this sell-out dinner series.
Modernist Dinner Series
As students enter their second year, they are challenged to apply their knowledge in food sourcing, purchasing, menu development, costing and food production to produce an event of their design, emulating chefs whose style, substance and influence are shaping American cuisine.
Our instructors select chefs who are doing groundbreaking work in the world of food and beverage including innovative technical expertise, employment diversity, local and sustainable sourcing, heritage food research and promotion, accessible healthful food and wellness in the workplace.
Unique Study Experiences at the Culinary Institute of Montana
Food and beverage professionals who have an intrinsic connection to food in its simplest form are those who lead the industry.
Our students are immersed in an intensive farm-based learning environment with hands-on lessons at the FVCC Campus Farm in crop selection, planting, weeding, harvesting and processing of fruits and vegetables. When a student pulls a carrot out of the ground, smells the aroma and then immediately tastes that carrot, their understanding of food is expanded exponentially.
This class is offered in summer semester between the freshman and senior year in the program.
Students are challenged in their final semester to engage all business competencies they have learned in an intensive semester-long project to plan, organize, direct and analyze a business of their development. Students work with business management faculty to develop a business plan and with the culinary instructional team to write and implement a detailed operational manual.
Students complete organizational development and values-vision-mission statements, business concept, demographic and psychographic analysis, SWOT analysis, menu development, food sourcing, purchasing, in-depth marketing plan and food costing; as well as staff training, operational standards development, crew scheduling and food production.
This class is offered in the final semester of the senior year.
The Culinary Institute of Montana curriculum is rich in culinary technique, but equally important is our focus on business competencies. These skills differentiate our students and prepare them to succeed as leaders in a variety of food and beverage and hospitality businesses.
Our graduates are prepared to actualize their dreams in a broad industry of career paths:
- Storeroom and receiving operations
- Purchasing and cost-control
- Food and beverage service
- Hospitality supervision
- Menu planning
- Interpersonal communication
- Professional business communication
- Small business entrepreneurship
Culinary Arts in the News
Browse success stories from the FVCC Culinary Arts program, alumni and events.
Learn more about FVCC