On Saturday mornings at Young Chefs Academy of Sandy Springs, kids arrive in chef coats, trade high-fives and secret handshakes, then crowd around the ingredients table angling for clues about what they’ll be making. A team of teaching chefs preps stations, industrial tables gleaming in the morning light.
There are always two dishes by the end of class. Early arrivals get a taste, paired with the class-favorite lemonade.
Some Saturdays it’s a straightforward breakfast lesson. Others it’s a movie-day menu built around old-school snack-bar classics, or five different ways to break down a mango. Favorites skew sweet, but a chicken-orzo pasta has quietly worked its way to the top of the list.
Whatever’s on the menu, class starts the same way: mise en place — French for “everything in its place.”
It’s the rule Chef Cameron Williams repeats before anyone picks up a knife.
“It’s built into the structure,” Williams says. “We start off with the central concept of mise en place. We take it step by step: how do you approach your recipe, how do you prep it, how do you put it all together. That format never changes, no matter what we’re making.”
Over the next 90 minutes, a room full of kids — some barely tall enough to see over the counter — learn to sauté, plate a dish and describe exactly what they tasted.
Williams and his wife, Chef Arielle Jolly-Williams, own the Sandy Springs location of the national franchise Young Chefs Academy, where they are developing more than young cooks.
Their approach is rooted in a simple belief: Give children real skills and real expectations, and they will rise to meet them.