Bleu Plate Special: Cordon Bleu College students skills on the menu at Cafe Bleu

By Kristen Peterson (contact)

Wednesday, June 16, 2004 | 8:16 a.m.

They're nervous. Who can blame them? It's testing day. There are 22 student chefs working the kitchen, 21 more waiting tables, and Cafe Bleu is near capacity. "Today is the busiest day of the week," instructor Ron Markowicz said while looking over the staff. "We have 95 people coming in. The restaurant seats about 150. But we're trying not to overwhelm them."

So far, he said, "They haven't dropped a thing."

Next month the inaugural class for Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts will be gone. Heinz Lauer, the instructor who led the flurry of Cafe Bleu workers from culinary illiteracy to fine dining fluency and pastry panache, admits he gets teary.

"You get to know these students," Lauer said, standing in the front of the restaurant on Center Crossing Road near Summerlin Parkway and Town Center Drive in Summerlin." It's like when the kids go to college and leave the house.

"It was a short, quick year, a long journey and an incredible experience for us."

The restaurant, connected to the 11-month-old school, is a way for the students to learn the business before moving into other work environments. For their last class, they're making and serving roast lamb, salmon farci and pineapple mint chicken for $10, $6 and $9. Diners know to have reservations for the two hours that the restaurant is open.

The students, already working their externships at restaurants around town (which will last another three months), not only represent themselves, but Lauer and the new school with an historic name.

The class has its stars. Barbara Brown, a 43-year-old, soon-to-be graduate who moved to Las Vegas with her husband after she was laid off from Sprint and Cingular, spent one day "staging" (following a worker) at Bradley Ogden restaurant, hoping she'd be invited back for an externship.

It was a crazy night, Brown recalled from the front of Cafe Bleu, where she was hosting for the day.

"They had double books, 450 covers and a 55 top. The staff was like an orchestra. Everybody knew their place. Everybody got along. He turned the restaurant twice." Translation: "450 covers" means diners and a "55 top" means a 55-guest table.

"I did everything from helping in pastry to plating," Brown said. "I stood there for an hour clipping dill leaves. At 12:30 (a.m.) he shook my hand and asked, TWhen can you start?'"

Like Brown, the other students will spread to restaurants throughout Las Vegas. Some will go into catering. Some will work in fine-dining establishments. Others will head to cooking lines at restaurants along the Strip.

"I just started at Rosemary's yesterday - in pantry," said 21-year-old Danielle Richvalsky, a former telecommunications worker, who for today is the general manager of Cafe Bleu. "It's exciting."

The big turnover

Cafe Bleu seats between 70 and 90 diners a day. It could seat up to 150, but the school keeps the crowd down to train the students.

The restaurant and school are an extension of the legendary French school. Lunch at Cafe Bleu begins at 11:30 a.m. Reservations are highly recommended. Students arrive by 8 a.m. and begin prepping. They rotate stations daily. Half the class works three weeks in the front of the restaurant, then switches with the chefs in the kitchen.

"Every three weeks basically you open a new restaurant with a new crew," Lauer said. "It's very intense. We had a few days when we only served friends and family. Two or three plates went down.

"This is not a restaurant. This is a school. The focus is the students in all circumstances. You get a great meal for a decent price, but the focus is on the student ... I take a lot of ownership in what I'm doing - and when the students go out. Up and down the Strip, we have them in big and small operations."

Lauer's done this before. He was an instructor at California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. But that was different, he said. The school had been open 25 years. At Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Las Vegas, this is a chance for local restaurants to observe the new school's credibility.

Aside from the hectic restaurant pace, there's been plenty of other incidents testing the students. Repeat diner Marilyn Barkan was eating at Cafe Bleu when the power went out.

"The power went out the first time I was here," Barkan said. "They whipped up a salad for us and dessert. They were very calm."

That outage, Markowicz said, was "the perfect restaurant opportunity, because anything can happen in a restaurant. They (the students) handled it amazingly.

"That's the business. The soft opening had to be pushed off for a day so they handled the class at Rosemary's Restaurant. It was off the cuff. We didn't know until the last minute."

In November the restaurant will begin serving dinner. The routine will be the same. Students will move from the classes into the restaurant, and student chefs will rotate between the front of the restaurant and back of the house.

"In order to have that full gamut, you have to know the restaurant," Markowicz said, explaining why student chefs are waiting and busing tables. "Everyone in here, they're all chefs. They don't have front-of-the-house experience."

Watching the students from the side was Christian Shearer, a former server at Little Buddha at the Palms and former manager and trainer for the Ritz Carlton in Phoenix.

"We look for the finer points," Shearer said.

Perspiring and finishing her shift, Richvalsky, who would like to move into private catering, recaps her day as general manager.

"The front and back went well today," she said. "It just depends on who you have on the expo line. This is our final, and people are getting nervous.

"We had a couple complications, but overall, it went fairly well."