As the pastry chef behind jewelry-inspired bakery Mini Melanie, ICE Culinary Arts alum Melanie Moss serves up some of the most stylish treats in NYC. But before she was catering the city’s most chic parties and designing cakes that are almost too pretty to eat, Melanie trained in some of the country’s most famous restaurant kitchens.

Working your way up the professional ladder in the kitchen is a wonderful experience, filled with constant exposure to new cooking techniques, methods of organizational management and learning how to work with a team to execute the day’s work. It’s the type of work that never gets old, at least not for me.

So you want to be a chef, but don’t know if you’ll like working in restaurant kitchens? Well, what if restaurant experience could be a powerful tool in launching a less traditional career in food? That’s what happened for ICE Culinary Arts graduate Alex Laudeman, who now works on the culinary development team for one of NYC’s hottest food delivery startups, Maple.

A professional kitchen runs on precision, timing and teamwork. Every decision (good or bad) affects service, staff and the guest experience.

Recently, in the first session of my Introduction to Wine class at ICE, a student posed the question that plagues many new wine drinkers: “What makes a wine good or great?” The question was more than fair, considering we had spent the evening tasting a variety of wines and noting the worthy qualities of their differing characteristics. Light, heavy, young, old, dry, sweet — could they all be good? Well, the short answer is yes.

Throughout my life, I've learned to appreciate high quality ingredients—both in the food I'm cooking and dishes prepared by others. One of my biggest revelations on the road to pastry school was the first time I tasted the difference between a cake made from a boxed mix and one made from scratch. Ultimately, I feel infinitely happier consuming something when I know exactly what went into it to make it taste so good. However, it wasn't until pastry school that I truly understood the impact the best ingredients make in the final product.

When someone mentions “creativity” in the context of cooking, you might initially think about artful plating, unusual ingredient selection or innovation in cooking techniques. ICE alum and culinary director at Dig Inn Matthew Weingarten has built his career on a completely different type of creativity.

Over the course of more than 35 years in the hospitality industry, there’s little that ICE Dean of Hospitality Management Tom Voss hasn’t seen. His career spans the heights of both hotel operations and food and beverage management, serving as general manager of no less than three different luxury properties and numerous hotel restaurants.

“You’re going to get your close-up if you want it,” explains renowned chef and Food Network personality Alex Guarnaschelli. “But when it happens, what will you know how to do, and what will you have to say?” This week, Chef Alex spoke to a packed room of ICE students and graduates as she shared insights from her storied culinary career.

The first time I walked into an ICE kitchen, I could not wait to start cooking! I quickly found out how much there was to learn before I’d be allowed to craft a complete dish. Initially, I was disappointed that we weren’t going to jump right in and prepare elaborate feasts. That’s what I signed up for, right? As it turns out, consistently producing an amazing plate is harder than it looks. From knife skills to sauces to butchery, it’s amazing how many “basic” skills I learned in just the first two months of school.