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!)
Chef's Table event

Get Started

  1. Apply to FVCC
  2. Contact Culinary Admissions Advisor Mandee Johnson at mjohnson@fvcc.edu or 406.756.3860.
  3. Confirm pre-requisites and placement testing with Mandee after submitting application to FVCC.
  4. 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.
  5. 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
Chef's Table
Modernist Dinner Series

Unique Study Experiences at the Culinary Institute of Montana

Culinary students are immersed in an intensive farm-based learning environment with hands on lessons at the FVCC Campus Farm.

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

Learn more about FVCC