Culinary students serve 5-course meal for final grade
It's a final exam like no other.
On a mid-May weeknight in Missoula, Night Caps: Supper Club opened its doors to serve dinner to 95 ticket-holding guests. The night pays homage to the food and entertainment of the 1930s and 1940s.
The elaborate one-night production is planned and executed in five-star fashion by aspiring chefs set to graduate from the Culinary Arts Program at Missoula College. Students apply and interview for each of the kitchen positions for the annual Capstone Dinner.
Friends and parents the students at Missoula College peruse the silent auction and appetizer bar while sipping cocktails, oblivious to the organized chaos feet away in the kitchen.
Program Director Thomas Campbell keeps a close eye on every step of the process and lets his critiques be heard.
Sous Chef Joe Phillips demonstrates exactly how to plate the main course. With two hands to plate each ingredient, the stacks of 96 plates disappear in assembly line fashion with all but one headed to the front of the show.
"You always gotta have an emergency plate," says student and executive chef Nathan Hampson as he places one in a warming oven.
This year, Hampson and general manager Kasi Warner are taking on the responsibilities of real restaurateurs on the opening night of Night Caps: Supper Club. After developing a business plan, menu and theme for the restaurant, Night Caps was selected from other proposals by the chef instructors.
"The premise of the whole dinner is to open their own restaurant," Campbell said.
Warner has been busy booking a live jazz band, training wait staff and decorating the Missoula College cafeteria to feel like a 1930s supper club. Bead chandeliers hang from the ceiling and empty bottles of Whyte Laydie Gin filled with feathers and flowers serve as centerpieces.
Amid the whir of food processors and industrial stand mixers, Hampson wraps bacon around petite filet mignons while joking with his front line cooks about wasting bacon.
"That's a culinary crime!" Hampson said.
Working closely with instructors and Phillips to develop a five-course menu calling on the flavors of Prohibition-era America, Hampson serves as the kitchens' leader, but every one of the 16 students plays an essential part.
The camaraderie present in the kitchen is quickly observed, jokes squeeze between calls of 'hot!' and 'sharp!' as the soon-to-be chefs buzz around stations in organized chaos, preparing for their last hurrah (and test) as culinary students.
As the wait staff smoothly presents the main course to the guests, Warner floats around the dining room checking in on each table and taking note of empty water glasses and dropped silverware, quickly making her servers aware of guests in need.
Soon after dinner, she wheels a dessert cart to the center of the dining room where she pours a shot of Bacardi 151 on top of baked Alaska and lights it on fire.
Meanwhile the kitchen staff changes into their official chefs jackets, a crisper version of their kitchen apparel with their names embroidered on the breast. Warner joins them and champagne flutes clink in the kitchen as they revel in the success of the service and savor their last moments as culinary arts students.
The guests whistle, applaud and tap glasses with silverware as instructor Suzanne Phillips calls each student to the stage. She shares favorites memories of each student and their aspirations, from becoming a butcher or starting an organic restaurant.
She radiates excitement for the futures of her former students — now chefs themselves.
Evan Frost is a photo journalism student at the University of Montana.