CIA at Copia (The Culinary Institute of America at Copia) — Attraction in Napa

Just finished a 4 day boot camp at the CIA. I came away with some helpful tips but was generally disappointed by the curriculum and organization. Each day there were simply too many recipes for the head chef instructor to manage and teach (this is not a critique of the instructor but of the curriculum itself). Because you get divided into teams and are specifically assigned recipes each day, you don’t get to learn how to make all the dishes. While the chef offered demonstrations, I found them difficult to follow because often I couldn’t see what was being done. Too many students crowded around a tiny space. It would be helpful if they had a hanging mirror overhead a dedicated teaching station so that students can see more easily. Moreover, I sometimes couldn’t step away to watch a demonstration because my own dishes were in the process of being cooked. There was simply too much content crammed into a short amount of time.

If the number of recipes were scaled down, then we would all have a chance to practice and get better at something. Scaling down the number of recipes would free up the chef to go around and help more students instead of being pulled in a million and one direction. Although the instructor was open to questions and would come help when asked, I noticed that she did not evenly spread out her time and attention among the groups. I know that my group could’ve used more help over the course of the four days; we found ourselves frequently asking the assistant chef for help because the head chef was tied up with others or would only spend a brief amount of time working with our group. We were really grateful that the assistant chef would come in and check in on us because we largely felt forgotten otherwise.

The recipes need to be modernized in terms of flavor and feature more of what Napa Valley has to offer, which is fresh vegetables. Moreover, not all ingredients are sourced from high-quality vendors. Perhaps the biggest frustration of all is that sometimes there were not enough ingredients, which caused some friction between groups because there were not enough to go around.

Lastly, be aware that the advertised class time of 9:30 am to 2:30 pm is not correct and that you don’t get a sense of the real class schedule until 1 week before the actual class. Class starts at 9 am and usually ends by 2:30 but there’s an optional evening class dinner on one of the nights at 6 pm. Office admin should post the actual schedule on their website so folks can know before deciding to register and/or rearrange their schedules so that they too can take advantage of the optional activity.

There was no anonymous feedback form at the end of the boot camp. I found this odd and disappointing given that CIA prides itself on...

We were very excited for our dinner with family and friends and made a reservation for 11. We considered the prix fixe menu but decided to do the 4 course meal so that everyone could choose their own. While it was easy to make a reservation and update the time, we had a very difficult time getting in touch with the restaurant despite calling during open hours and leaving multiple voicemails. Normally this wouldn’t be worthy of noting except that the front of house staff made a point to say that they had trouble getting in touch with me but had only called once and left no voicemail and didn’t pick up the phone for the other 5 times we called during operating hours.

Given the size of our party we were able to try every dish on the set menu. Some were stellar including the cucumber salad and the bone marrow pasta dish. Portion sizes were very generous, but we ended up not finishing most dishes as they weren’t balanced. Some dishes lacked salt, while others were extremely salty. Some of the flavors were very sharp or overwhelmed the rest of the dish. For example the pesto on the gnocchi was very acidic and had a very young and flavorful olive oil that took over the dish. One of our party’s bone marrow pasta had a large clump of pepper in it that caused her to leave the restaurant to cough outside. However, my same dish was delicious, highlighting the inconsistency in plates. The steak, which was an extra $60, was overcooked. We ordered medium rare and while beautifully presented, only the 2 middle slices had a hint of pink whereas all other pieces were cooked through. For the desserts, the strawberry tiramisu was overly sweet with the jam/puree and was less lady fingers and more of a layered cake. The meringue in the peach dessert had a very hard shell that required significant force to crack. The peaches were wonderful but again the sauces were overly sweet.

We were very excited for this meal and looked forward to an amazing experience. While we understand it’s a learning facility, it didn’t seem like dishes were tasted before being served and no one asked how our meal was. There was plenty of staff but no one checked in on the quality of the food. It ended up being a very leisurely meal, which they mentioned as we were doing the 4 course meal and had ordered the steak. However, over 3 hours was a bit lengthy with an extended pause before dessert. Given the price of the meal and wonderful reputation of the school and restaurant, we walked away disappointed at the overall experience and quality despite some...

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We were really looking forward to our night out at the CIA.

We ordered appetizers (two of the tasting options), and two entrees. We received wine very quickly. After that, the experience went downhill.

No one came by our table for close to an hour! During this time, guests who arrived after us received their dishes. We tried to grab the attention of the wait staff, however, they were very good at not making eye contact.

We noticed what looked like our entrees ready to go at the kitchen, they were sitting there for about 15 min....then they took the dishes away, to someplace. Shortly after that our entrees then showed up, BEFORE our appetizers, we informed the staff that we had in fact ordered appetizers. The (what looked like the) manager came by to apologize and to "hope that it goes well going forward".

After this mix up the appetizers showed up very quickly (which made us wonder why it was over an hour). Our server was nowhere to be seen and we had to flag down another server to order our 2nd bottle of wine.

Ordered dessert. Paid in full. Lackluster attempt by staff to even recognize the errors in service.

The food was amazing, the wait staff was the complete opposite.

This was to be our big night out meal while on vacation, we wanted to enjoy the experience and the service we got made us leave very disappointed. The restaurant was maybe 1/3 full, so one would think that the service would not be the issue.

The staff at a McDonald's (no offence to McDonald's) are more attentive than the service we received at...