Tim Ryan

The Culinary Institute of America has been on an expansion spree recently. The 66-year-old school based in Hyde Park, N.Y., opened its fourth campus, in Singapore, in 2010, and its San Antonio campus, which opened in 2008, will launch a new certificate program focusing on Latin American cuisines.

CIA president Tim Ryan discussed the school’s recent changes with Nation’s Restaurant News.

What’s behind the CIA’s recent expansion?

We didn’t really have plans to open any new campuses, truth be told. Our goal is to provide the best culinary education. But these two campuses made a lot of sense.

The Singapore campus is fully funded by the Singaporean government, and San Antonio was made possible by a billionaire from Texas [Kit Goldsbury].

Also, San Antonio is the gateway to Mexico and Latin America. The population of San Antonio is almost 80-percent Hispanic, and that’s such an important demographic.

Depending on the city, between 30 and 80 percent of the foodservice workforce is Latin American, and they’re not rising through the ranks at commensurate levels. If we can provide these talented, industrious Latinos with a world class-education, more culinary leaders will come from their ranks.

Also, Mexican restaurants are the most popular restaurants in the country, but we haven’t been exposed much to Argentine, Peruvian, Brazilian or Colombian cuisine.

As for Singapore, in terms of world demographics, Asia’s very important, and also Asian cuisines and ingredients are very important to modern American cuisine.

Do you have plans for future openings?

Happily, there’s not a day that goes by when we don’t get presented with another opportunity. We’ve been talking for some time with the Spanish government, and they have offered us a 14th Century castle outside of Madrid.

We’re also looking at Israel. The hospitality industry there is interested in us, but we don’t have any immediate plans.

The CIA’s main educational focus has been on French cuisine, but you have added education in Mediterranean, Latin American and Asian cuisines. What are your future plans in terms of educating students?

For about eight years we have taught three weeks each of those three regional cuisines [in the core curriculum].

Now, offering more electives is a big focus. As professions develop, the knowledge becomes too great for one single curriculum, so you have to offer more electives.