In August of 2000, my dad, Harold Meyberg, and my mom, Lili, founded the San Diego Culinary Institute with a handful of students and one very important idea: to build a better culinary school.

They wanted to build a school that taught technique, not recipes; that required each Chef Instructor to possess no less than 5 years as an Executive Chef in a fine dining environment — an astonishing minimum requirement for any culinary school. Finally, they insisted that their program offer extensive hands-on training, with limited class sizes, in well-equipped kitchen classrooms.

They began with just a handful of students and a firm commitment to this straightforward set of ideals.

Since they founded the school, we have doubled our classroom space and expanded our program to teach the Commis program to our students. My dad isn't here to see what his school has become, but we carry on in his name and with an unwavering dedication to our initial ideals.

Mission Statement
We at the San Diego Culinary Institute dedicate ourselves to providing aspiring culinarians the best education available at a reasonable cost. Through our network of employers, we help our students and graduates find employment opportunities in some of the finest kitchens in the world and assist them as they establish and build their careers. Through the standardized curricula of our programs, we ensure the employers in our network that the graduates they employ are well-trained with a thorough background in basic, professional culinary and baking and pastry skills.

To these ends, we commit ourselves to the following standards:
- We, as an organization, are committed to raising the standards of American culinary education. In doing so, we seek out the finest instructors in the business and commit ourselves to continually review and elevate our standards of excellence and our skills as educators.
- We utilize the same top quality ingredients found in fine dining establishments all over the country so that our students understand the flavor profiles of exotic, high quality ingredients and how to use them to produce the finest dishes.
- We ensure that our kitchen classrooms are always well-stocked with the tools of the trade so that our graduates leave us with the confidence they need to perform for the most demanding employers.
- We have created a well-defined curriculum, designed to ensure that every student learns the skills necessary to excel in the workplace and that every student receives a consistent standard of quality in their education: Every graduate of SDCI reflects this high standard and meets the weight of expectations of their employers. We do this not only for the sake of our students, but also with an eye to their employers. All employers can expect every graduate of our program to possess a certain set of skills and to perform to a high standard of excellence.
- Overall, we continuously challenge ourselves to improve, to elevate our standards of education, performance and service to our students and alumni. In doing so, the San Diego Culinary Institute continues its mission to offer the finest culinary and pastry arts education to aspiring culinarians and become the finest culinary school in the nation.

We base the course curriculum on teaching the fundamental cooking techniques that any student must master to perform effectively in a fine dining environment working in any national cuisine. In addition to cooking skills, SDCI emphasizes professionalism and teamwork throughout the program. The ability to master the basic tools of the kitchen combined with cleanliness, organizational skills, and the ability to work effectively with others has proven to be a successful formula to the many world-renown chefs that employ our graduates.

The Accrediting Council for Continuing Education & Training (ACCET) is a voluntary group of educational organizations affiliated for the purpose of improving continuing education and training. Through its support of an independent Accrediting Commission, the ACCET membership promulgates and sustains the Standards for Accreditation along with policies and procedures that measure and ensure educational standards of quality. ACCET is recognized for this purpose by the U.S. Secretary of Education and, accordingly, is listed by the U.S. Department of Education as a nationally recognized accrediting agency.

The essential purpose of the accreditation process is to provide a professional judgment as to the quality of the educational institution and program(s) offered, and to encourage continual improvement thereof. Accreditation is the process by which the ACCET Accrediting Commission grants public recognition to an educational institution which has voluntarily submitted to an evaluative comparison with established qualifications and standards, both upon initial application and periodically thereafter. ACCET's function is focused upon educational quality, the continuous assessment and improvement of educational practices, and assistance to member institutions in the improvement of these practices within their programs.

The four major components of this on-going process are:
(1) the development and implementation of institutional and program goals and objectives that focus upon a continuing education mission,
(2) a comprehensive, analytic self-evaluation review and report by the institution,
(3) an on-site professional peer review to evaluate the adequacy and accuracy of the self-evaluation, and
(4) an independent review and decision by the Accrediting Commission as an assessment the institution's commitment to and compliance with ACCET standards, policies and procedures.

The Commis Culinary program represents the culmination of years of research and program development by some of the finest culinary educators in the country. Based upon proven methods of culinary education and incorporating current thinking on how people learn, the Commis Method leads aspiring Chefs through a more logical series of courses. This is an educational strategy that makes more sense. Each course in the series leads naturally to the next and relies inevitably on the preceding.

This is a hands-on program (80% of your studies take place in the kitchen). We believe that culinary students learn more working in a kitchen, with product. At SDCI, every student prepares food every day — no fighting for space or kitchen resources with other students. And again, you learn techniques, not recipes. With a command of foundational techniques, Commis students can execute virtually any recipe from any cookbook, rather than a limited number of dishes taught out of a cookbook.