École Ducasse, there's a futuristic 5'000 sqm campus near Paris

A new partnership shakes the European training scene. Two important realities signed it a few weeks ago: École Ducasse and Sommet Education. The first is the cooking and pastry school founded in 1999 in Paris by Alain Ducasse, a living monument to French cuisine, a curriculum based on teachers who are (or have been) prominent chefs, Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, world champions or artisans.

Sommet is instead a network specialised in hospitality management and culinary arts which includes prestigious schools in Europe and beyond, most importantly Glion (Switzerland and London) and Les Roches (Crans Montana, Marbella and Shanghai). The agreement with Ducasse's school allows them to annex 3 realities: the new campus-training centre in Paris-Meudon (see below for details), the École in the 16th arrondissements of Paris, and the École Nationale Supérieure de Pâtisserie in Yssingeaux, in the Loire region, inside the castle of Montbarnier. Over the years Sommet has trained students, with or without a degree, from over 100 countries around the world, trained with the typical rigour of the Swiss model, in a cosmopolite, multicultural environment, with modules that wisely mix theory and practice.

Left to right, Elise Masurel (general director at Ecolè Ducasse), Benoît-Etienne Domenget (CEO at Sommet Education) and Alain Ducasse (chef and founder of Ducasse Education and president of Ducasse Développement)

The important novelty is that the liaison between Swiss educational model and French savoir faire has given birth to the École Ducasse – Paris Campus, a huge space – 5'000 square metres – in Meudon, a calm suburb south-west of the capital, not too far from Versailles. A place whose hardware was conceived by Charpentier Architectes, the same art agency of other acclaimed works like the Tour Oxygène in Lyon or the Opera House in Shanghai. While the software, that is to say the internal design, is signed by Jouin Manku, the same agency that designed the concept of Plaza Athénée in Paris (one of Alain Ducasse's 3 restaurants with 3 Michelin stars, together with Louis XV in Monte Carlo and the Dorchester in London).

An ultra-modern complex, which includes 9 laboratories dedicated to cooking and pastry making classes, a dichotomy that we owe to the fathers of French classic cuisine, masters of whom Ducasse is the deserving epigone. The laboratories include, among other things, 7 classrooms for theoretical courses (finance, marketing, human resources), rooms for sensorial analysis, a knowledge centre, and a restaurant open to the public where students practice before or after their courses.

The courses are divided into four types: Bachelors (three-years, the most demanding, developed with the consultancy of Romain Meder and Jessica Préalpato, cooks-pillars of Ducasse's empire), Signature (two full-immersion programmes lasting 8 months, in English), Diplomes (intensive 2 to 6-month programmes) and Essentiels (two months, even for amateurs). Costs range between a few hundred to dozens of thousands of euros for the most intense programmes.

All the educational careers have a common goal: train the new generations of the future, young women and men with a contemporary culinary vision, relationship skills, a unique technical know-how and great entrepreneurial competence.

For info, www.ecoleducasse.com telephone +393488705600.

Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso