Faculty Spotlight: Matthew Calidonna ’13

Q&A with CIA Hospitality and Service Management Instructor

Author Anna Pugh ’28 is an Applied Food Studies major.

The Culinary Institute of America is about more than just cooking, it’s about food. 2013 alum and current professor Mathew Calidonna recognizes that understanding food is understanding hospitality and beverage. His goal is to share his passion for this side of industry and cultivate that passion in students who otherwise would not be able to express it.

How did you decide to work at the Culinary Institute of America?

I was in the industry for about 16 years and throughout that time I’d been heavily involved in training restaurant employees, especially as I came to the front house. I noticed that some of the best service people, servers, sommeliers, and captains at each of these two and three Michelin starred restaurants, were CIA students that had made a career change. I was really inspired to share my story and share what I could do to, hopefully, inspire some students to leave the back-of-house and go to the front-of-house and learn that there’s opportunities in the larger world of restaurants than just cooking.

What previous positions have you had that you feel have impacted or influenced your teaching role at CIA?

I graduated in 2013 from the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park, NY, and I’m a Certified Sommelier, studying for my level three, the Advanced Sommelier. I’ve been a chef at an Italian bistro, a sous chef at a French restaurant, an executive chef at a pizzeria and I’ve worked harvest in vineyards. I also worked as a front-of-house service professional at a Michelin three-star restaurant called Sazon. I’ve had a lot of experiences throughout my life that qualify me to kind of share my own experiences and my journey. Through the restaurants into what I teach now.

What aspects of working at CIA have been different from previous places you have worked?

It’s really nice to be in an environment where everybody’s helping push everything forward, rather than trying to hide information, and we try to share and gather as much as we can. There’s a saying, “rising tide lifts all boats,” and that’s really felt at CIA, especially on the campus. There’s no excuses and there’s no cutting corners and there’s no replacement for quality. Our standards are extremely high, just like they would be in the industry. There’s no competitiveness to it, there’s no competitiveness for the business model, but the students compete, and the teachers compete to see who can make the best students. That’s very similar to how in the industry we compete to see who can put out the best employees.

How do you engage with students, especially outside of class?

I’m the advisor for the SkillsUSA restaurant service aspect. I’ve been doing that for three years now, and I get to go to Atlanta every year where my students compete at the national level. My biggest outreach, and the thing that I’ve come to love the most outside of working hours is being the advisor for the Bacchus Wine Club. Students all together in the same room tasting, talking about, enjoying wine together, and learning in a similar environment. I’m able to reach so many students that have a passion for my side of the industry that they wouldn’t be able to see in their cooking classes.

What’s your favorite or most interesting class that you teach here on campus?

The most interesting class would have to be the wines class. It is so unique; it’s not the type of class that you teach anywhere else in the world. There’s a few other culinary schools and places with beverage programs. It’s the class that really changed the trajectory of my entire life, so to be able to teach in that same classroom and teach the same subject, that’s so important to me personally and professionally, that is one of the coolest things I’ve ever been able to do.