The restaurant business has been booming in recent years—take a look at any major avenue anywhere on Long Island and you’re likely to lose count of the assorted eateries populating the roadway. Well, all those restaurants need chefs, and there’s no better place to earn the skills needed for that in-demand career than at the Star Career Academy of Syosset.
Formerly known as the Culinary Academy of Long Island—and slated to reclaim that name once again in the coming months—Star Career Academy has been schooling prospective chefs on the saucier side of food prep for 20 years and counting, according to school president and chef Victor J. McNulty.
“We teach culinary arts and pastry arts, and we’re fully accredited and licensed by the State of New York. It’s a nine-month certificate program, so you come here, you learn all the basics for six months, and then we put you out on a three-month externship. So, essentially within a year you’re out and working in the field,” he said. “We’re very similar to a lot of the schools in the city, and an alternative if somebody doesn’t want to go to a two-or four-year college because the reality in the culinary world is that you don’t have to have an associate’s or a bachelor’s degree to get ahead in the industry…employers just want to see that you had some sort of formalized training and experience.”
McNulty, a Huntington resident, is a chef that started with the school 11 years ago as an instructor, back when it was known as the Culinary Academy of Long Island, and over the years moved up in the ranks until he became the president of its current Plainview campus last year.
“Michael Levitt started the school in Westbury in 1996, and 10 years ago he moved the school to Plainview after they had outgrown the old location,” McNulty said. “Michael eventually sold the school to Star Career Academy, a Technical Institute that has seven East Coast campuses that was looking to expand into the culinary arts as well. Michael became the Chief Operating Officer of Star and subsequently went out and helped them expand their culinary arts programs in their other facilities. He brought me along, and I helped to build and oversee all of the schools, including writing their curriculum.”
A year ago, Levitt retired and put McNulty in charge of his school. One of his first acts as president, he said, was to start the process of reclaiming the academy old name the reputation they had originally worked so hard for years to carve out in the crowded restaurant scene.
“Michael wanted me to get enrollment back up to where it needs to be, and we’re in the process of changing the name from Star Career Academy back to Culinary Academy of Long Island. We will still be part of the Star Family of schools, but we had a great reputation under our old name…it was very well known in the restaurant industry and when we merged with Star, we changed the name and added some non-culinary classes, and some people thought that we had closed.” he said. “So a year ago, I convinced Star to focus this school back as a pure culinary school, so we got rid of the other classes and got back solely to what the school had built its reputation on before we had changed our name. We probably had about triple the enrollment than what we currently have, but now that we’re changing the name back—which should happen probably this August—we’re working on getting our enrollment back up to those levels again.”
Right now the school has about 150 enrollees between in-house students and externships, however, McNulty stated his goal is to get enrollment up to anywhere between 350 and 450 students.
Star Career Academy/Culinary Academy of Long Island certainly has the tool for the job—they boast four huge commercial kitchens, each able to accommodate up to 20 people. They run morning, afternoon, and evening shifts and McNulty touts the school as being very affordable, with financial aid and grants for those who qualify, and a proven track record of not only giving people the skill to get ahead, but ensuring that they are gainfully employed in the field when they graduate as well.
“We’ve been here for 20 years, we have very high placement rates…I have more job orders now that I have students to fill them,” he said. “We have graduates out there who own their own restaurants, own their own bakeries, and are on all of these crazy cooking reality shows on TV, because a lot of the casting agents will call us. Two of my former students practically run the Food Network from behind the scenes.”
Christopher Barnes, of North Amityville, is a U.S. Army veteran and a current student at Star Academy, and notes that his training there has given him a love of the culinary arts that he never knew he had.
“I went from liking cooking to loving cooking…I really enjoy it. It’s my safe haven, actually,” he said. “I’m really hoping it makes me the best person I can be…as a veteran I get VA benefits, and I would recommend this school to any vet.”
Another student, Oscar Ortega, originally hails from Guatemala, but is now calling Hempstead home, and is considered one of Star Academy’s top students for both his enthusiastic attitude and skill.
“It’s like I was born again…with all the experience with my friends and instructors here, I’m getting all of the basic skills,” he said. “But it’s more than that. It’s the core of everything…it’s how to do everything in the right way, the proper way. It’s just been a great experience.”
McNulty said that Star Career Academy/Culinary Academy of Long Island also has a charitable edge to themselves as well, noting that there’s no opportunity to do good for the community—and to show his students the benefits of helping others—that he will ever turn down.
“We do a ton of charity events…last year the Ronald McDonald House of Long Island was my charity of choice, so once a month we would go down there and cook for the families staying there. We’ve also worked with United Cerebral Palsy of Nassau County, Babylon breast cancer, and other places,” he said. “Whenever a charity event comes across my desk, I try to do them because it’s the right thing to do and it creates good karma, and it also gets our name out there and it gets the students involved in helping those in need, which they enjoy.”
