The Institute of Culinary Education (ICE®) is New York City's largest and most active center for culinary education. Founded in 1975 by Peter Kump, the school offers highly regarded 7- to 12-month career training programs in Culinary Arts, Pastry & Baking, Culinary Management and Hospitality Management. ICE also runs the largest program of hands-on recreational cooking and baking classes and wine education in the country, in addition to hosting hundreds of corporate and private cooking events a year.

ICE was a finalist and winner of the International Association of Culinary Professionals' 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2008 Awards of Excellence for Culinary Schools. Its students and alumni regularly are nominated for or win top industry awards, such as James Beard Awards, Food & Wine's Best New Chefs in America, and Pastry Art & Design's Ten Best Pastry Chefs.

The Institute of Culinary Education was founded by Peter Kump in 1975. From 1975 to 1995, The Institute was formerly known as Peter Kump's New York Cooking School.

In 1975, Peter Kump, an educator and entrepreneur with a great love of food, taught five students the basic techniques of cooking in the cramped kitchen of his Upper West Side, New York City apartment. Not long after, The New York Times wrote favorably of the fledgling school. As a result of that article, Kump received numerous phone calls from potential students asking to study with him, and Peter Kump's New York Cooking School was born.

Within five years, the school was flourishing. In 1979, an article in Bon Appétit quoted Kump as saying he hoped his students would not “leave here with a sheaf of spectacular recipes to repeat step-by-step ad infinitum. No. I want them to learn to develop taste. I want them to become free to improvise, to work without recipes. They should learn principles, the reasons for mixing and blending this with that. And techniques.”

In 1983, Kump inaugurated the professional program to train aspiring chefs. He himself had learned from the best, and former teachers of his such as James Beard, Simone Beck, Marcella Hazan and Diana Kennedy all later came to teach classes at the school. Illustrious food world figures such as Julia Child, James Peterson, David Bouley and Sara Moulton were frequently guest instructors in the 1980s.

In 1986, Chef Nick Malgieri's association with the school began. Former executive pastry chef at Windows on the World, and an award-winning author of five books, Malgieri launched the school's baking program and remains the driving force behind it today. Chef Malgieri is widely considered one of the world's leading pastry and baking instructors.

Among his other activities, Kump, along with Julia Child, went on to establish the James Beard Foundation in 1985. The organization inspires and showcases American chefs through dinners, publications, culinary festivals and its prestigious awards program. The school's ties to the Beard Foundation remain long and deep. When Peter Kump passed away in 1995, an obituary in The New York Times proclaimed him “one of the most influential figures on the American food scene.”

The Institute's facilities consist of 42,000 square feet of space spread over five floors at 50 West 23rd Street in the center of Manhattan. Everyone who visits ICE® the first time is left with the same impression...it is a warm, inviting and inspiring educational facility!

The school's 4th and 6th floor space is brand new, and its 5th and 12th floor kitchens completely renovated, as of January 2005; occupancy began in March 1999. Prior to that, The Institute (then Peter Kump's New York Cooking School) was headquartered on East 92nd Street. The 12th floor at 50 West 23rd Street has been occupied by the school since 1995.

The facilities include twelve teaching kitchens and four traditional classrooms, all outfitted with optimum equipment. The kitchens devoted to career training on the 6th and 14th floors include Vulcan ranges and ovens, Traulsen refrigerators and Hobart mixers. The kitchens used for recreational classes on the 12th floor include Viking ranges and KitchenAid mixers.

On the 5th floor, the two professional pastry kitchens include steam-injected Bongard triple-deck ovens, and a professional-quality dough sheeter. The wine room was specially designed as a 900 square-foot facility with full ventilation (so cooking odors from the pastry kitchens don't intrude), bright incandescent light and white tabletops (for accurate wine viewing), and ample bottle storage space which includes temperature-controlled Sub-Zero refrigeration and cabinetry imported from Italy.

The school's brand new, expanded reference library and career services offices are also on the 6th floor. Computer terminals are available to all students seven days a week.

In all kitchens, the majority of the school's cookware is sourced from Calphalon.

The architect for the 14th and 5th floors was Mr. Lawrence Gordon of Lawrence Gordon and Associates of Larchmont, New York. The project's construction company was Lehr Construction of New York City, with interior design by DePolo/Dunbar of New York City. The architects for the new 4th and 6th floor space was CPG Architects of Stamford, Connecticut, and the construction completed by Bronx Builders. All new and renovated space interior design by consultant Julia Lane.