He’s an executive chef at the largest Marriott hotel in Orlando – a job that takes him around the world – but when it comes to a culinary education, he says there’s no place like Niagara College.
As he visited culinary classrooms at the Daniel J. Patterson campus on October 3, Eric Martinez, executive chef from the Orlando World Centre Marriott, praised NC’s School of Culinary Arts.
“You are at the best culinary school, in my opinion,” he said to students. “I’ve seen quite a lot around the world throughout the world for recruiting with everything that I do.
“You are at the best possible place to get an education, the best possible school.”
He spoke about how he has never seen a facility like Niagara College, where there is so much collaboration between culinary and other programs.
“I’ve never seen a facility that you’ve got here where it really goes full circle. You can collaborate with a horticulture program… You can collaborate with the distillers… You’ve got everything under one roof that no one else has,” he said. “They might have components of it but they don’t have it all working together and in one environment.
“I speak praises of this program, whether I’m in Asia or in Central or South America, just about what’s going on here at this spot here in Niagara because it’s beyond impressive.”
Martinez offered culinary students a taste of what it’s like to lead food service at the Orlando World Centre Marriott, located in a tourism hotspot near Walt Disney World Resort, which serves groups of up to 12,000 people.
He spoke about traits that chefs have in common.
“We don’t think like the average person… We enjoy the chaos. We enjoy the adrenaline of what goes on. We love having 20 balls in the air and seeing if we can catch them before they all fall to the ground,” he said. “We love to figure out how we’re going to get through something even though it seems impossible but yet we come out the other end looking great. Those are the things that make culinary what it is.”
Martinez, who is originally from New Orleans, travelled to NC to be the featured chef for the Chef Signature Series October 5 event, offering guests a taste of Louisiana. View article here: Niagara College welcomes Chef Eric Martinez for unique culinary event Oct. 5.
He also visited the College 10 years ago to participate in a beer and barbecue event.
This time, he was accompanied by his friend, New Orleans based Chef Michael McGuire who also spoke to the culinary students about his work as sous chef at a food bank.
Martinez told the class that excites him to have a chance to connect with the students, who will be future leaders of culinary and beverage.
“There’s change coming. The industry’s turning, and it always does. It’s going to make some major moves here in the next five years,” he said. “You’re going to be the ones driving that bus, leading the charge on where we’re going to go and I’m excited to see that.”
Dean of Culinary, Tourism and Beverage Studies Craig Youdale stands with visiting chefs Eric Martinez and Michael McGuire who visited classrooms and toured the Daniel J. Patterson Campus.
