Culinary Institute of America

The New Haven Restaurant Institute was founded by New Haven attorney Frances Roth and Katharine Angell on May 22, 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut as a vocational training school for returning World War II veterans. It was the first culinary college in the United States. With assistance from Yale University, the school purchased the Davies mansion in New Haven's Prospect Hill neighborhood. The first class consisted of sixteen students and the faculty included a dietitian, a baker, and a chef. In 1947 the school was renamed the Restaurant Institute of Connecticut to reflect its growing repute; the school's name was changed again to the Culinary Institute of America in 1951.

Enrollment grew to approximately 1,000 students by 1969, beyond the capacity of its original campus, so the school purchased the St. Andrew-on-Hudson Jesuit novitiate in Hyde Park, New York in 1970. In 1971, the college began awarding associate degrees, and opened its doors in Hyde Park in the following year. From 1974 to 1979, the school built three residence halls, a culinary library, a career planning center, and a learning resources center. From 1982 to 1984, the American Bounty and Caterina de' Medici Restaurants and St. Andrew's Café opened. In 1984, the school's continuing education center (later named the J. Willard Marriott Education Center) opened, and the school improved its teaching kitchens and constructed an experimental kitchen and food laboratory. In 1990, the school opened a baking and pastry facility, named two years later as the Shunsuke Takaki School of Baking and Pastry. In 1993, the school opened its Conrad N. Hilton Library and began offering bachelor's degree programs. In 1995, the school's first branch campus opened, the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena, California. In 1998, the Student Recreation Center was opened.

The Apple Pie Bakery Café opened in 2000, and the Colavita Center opened the following year. More residence halls were built at the school's Hyde Park campus in 2004. In 2005, Anton Plaza opened in Hyde Park while the Ventura Center for Menu Research and Development opened in St. Helena. On April 23, 2008, the school's teachers' union approved a vote of no confidence regarding CIA president Tim Ryan, the result was 85 to 9 against him. A thirteen-item list of complaints included outdated technology, poor-quality classes, and bad dining hall meals. Ryan later met with union representatives and described coming improvements in scheduling and curriculum. Immediately after the faculty's vote of no confidence, the board of trustees unanimously voted in support of Ryan and extended his contract. In the course of the controversy, the school prevented the campus newspaper, La Papillote, from writing about the issue, which prompted its editor to resign. Administrators later apologized and reportedly allowed a full report in the paper's next issue.

The school's third campus opened in 2008 in San Antonio. Two years later, the CIA opened a campus in Singapore consisting of a facility on the campus of Temasek Polytechnic. In 2012, the CIA began offering a bachelor's degree program in culinary science, and in 2014 introduced a bachelor's degree in applied food studies. In the same year, the college acquired a portion of Copia, a museum in downtown Napa, California that operated from 2001 to 2008. In 2016, the college opened a campus, the Culinary Institute of America at Copia, which houses the CIA's new Food Business School. The college, which was outgrowing its St. Helena campus, purchased the northern portion of the Copia property for $12.5 million. The following year, CIA began offering electives focused on food photography and food styling in response to the growing popularity of food photography on social media platforms and increased competition for jobs. It also launched a Bachelor of Business Administration in Food Business Management in 2016 and a Bachelor of Science degree program in Hospitality Management in 2017. In February 2020, it announced its online Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Food Business Leadership program.

The college introduced master's-level education with a Master of Professional Studies degree program in Food Business in 2018 and Wine and Beverage Management in 2019. In 2023 it began offering an online Sustainable Food Systems master's program and master's degrees in Culinary Arts. The culinary arts master's program is based at the school's Hyde Park campus and includes courses on business administration and product sourcing, as well as in-person residencies. Residency locations include Michelin star-rated restaurants The French Laundry, SingleThread, and Californios, as well as with Dom Pérignon in the Champagne wine region. In 2024, the CIA and Kapiʻolani Community College announced a partnership to create a workforce development program in the University of Hawaiʻi system. In January 2025, a Culinary Therapeutics master's program was announced, which applies culinary arts strategies to promoting health and well-being.

The Food Business School

In spring 2015, the institute opened the Food Business School for executive and graduate education in business. The school's faculty are instructors at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and UC Davis; some were chefs, restaurant consultants and other food industry employees. The school involves three separate programs: online classes, 3- or 4-day sessions at the Greystone campus or other areas in the San Francisco Bay Area, and multiple-month-long programs. Tuition varies from $400 for a single course to $4,000 for an "intensive retreat". The program only offers certificates, but not graduate degrees.

Branding

The CIA has a brand licensing program that sells branded products for foodservice operations and households, and it also publishes cookbooks for professional and home use. The school's general cookbook, The Professional Chef also has an interactive iPad edition that PC Magazine called "a new frontier for books." During the late 1990s, the CIA produced the PBS television show Cooking Secrets of the CIA.