culinary school extern friendly restaurants in DC or MoCo?

[DCDeb]

Hi Everyone.

In the last phase of culinary school, students have to complete a 6-12 month externshipe at a restaurant. Do you know of restaurants/chefs in town that are extern-friendly? i.e. the chef is willing to invest time in training the extern (vs. peeling potatoes in a corner).

Thanks!

[emily0911]

While I haven't graduated from culinary school, I have taken a 6 month professional culinary school program and completed a 4 month externship at a well-regarded French-American restaurant in northern Virginia. I got the externship by sending letters to about 12 chefs/restaurants that I really respected and wanted to learn from -- I ended up with 4 meetings/interviews with chefs and 3 offers. In meeting with the chefs, I was able to tell where I was going to have the best experience and made my decision based on that. In restaurants with no other externs, you might get more personalized "attention" (both positive and negative) but it was nice to be in a place with other people in the same boat (i.e. other externs) -- you bond pretty quickly through the stress and long hours. In my experience though, you'll learn just as much from the other kitchen staff as you will from the chef him/herself.