“Our restaurant is going to be the beacon for everything we do at the Miami Culinary Institute,” John Richards stated, “showing the world what we mean by food culture innovation. I can’t think of anyone better than South Florida’s culinary pioneer Norman Van Aken to show the way.”
Dr. Eduardo J. Padrón, MDC’s president, stated, “Our recipe for success at Miami Dade College is to combine the widest accessibility to education with the very highest standard of excellence. It says everything about the level of quality of our new Miami Culinary Institute that Chef Norman Van Aken has come on board to direct its fully professional, top-of-the-line restaurant.”
Norman Van Aken stated, “It’s an honor and a privilege to join such a respected, forward-thinking institution. I look forward to the debut of the restaurant, and more importantly to working with a great team of chefs and faculty that will train the next generation of food innovators, keeping Miami’s food scene in the international spotlight.”
Inaugurated in April 2011, Miami Culinary Institute is an innovative, degree-granting school established to serve students, food industry professionals and the general public. MCI is distinguished by an emphasis on locally sourced, sustainable, field-to-table cuisine; real-world teaching methods, dedicated to training great cooks; its integration into Miami’s vibrant and diverse food culture; and its mission to provide a first-rate, life-changing education for students who cannot afford private or for-profit schools. Public amenities of MCI include its extensive program of enthusiast classes; its organic garden, an “edible pantry” offering a public green space in the heart of downtown Miami; and its student-run food truck and first-floor café. The professionally run public restaurant, opening in the fall, will serve a continually changing menu, showcasing cuisine by members of MCI’s distinguished Chef’s Council, including Norman Van Aken, Michelle Bernstein, Cindy Hutson, Douglas Rodriguez, Philippe Ruiz, Michael Schwartz, Rudi Sodamin and Allen Susser.
Chef Van Aken is known as “the founding father of New World Cuisine” for his celebration of Latin, Caribbean, Asian, African and American flavors. He is widely credited for introducing the concept of “fusion cuisine” in 1988 at a summit on American gastronomy in Santa Fe. A recipient of the James Beard Award as Best Chef in the Southeast, Chef Van Aken is the only Floridian also to have been awarded the James Beard Foundation's Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America. He is the founder of NORMAN’S, described by The New York Times as South Florida’s finest restaurant and nominated by the James Beard Foundation as Best Restaurant in America. In 2006, at the “Madrid Fusión” event of Spain’s International Summit of Gastronomy, he was honored alongside Alice Waters, Paul Prudhomme and Mark Miller as one of the “Founders of the New American Cuisine.” A frequent presence on television, where he has appeared on programs including Good Morning America and CBS This Morning, he is the author of four books—Feast of Sunlight (1988), The Exotic Fruit Book (1995), Norman’s New World Cuisine (1997) and New World Kitchen (2003)—with his fifth book, My Key West Kitchen, to be published in 2012.
