Washburne culinary school offers new Spanish-language course on Chicago's Englewood neighborhood

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The Washburne Culinary and Hospitality Institute is now offering a basic certificate completely in Spanish.

Learning culinary arts completely in Spanish means new opportunities for the Latino community in Chicago, and this is the first time the South Side culinary school has offered this opportunity.

"We actually teach you from start to finish from grabbing a knife all the up to assembling an entire play and then if they choose to with their education and continue to the advanced program or even the associates they can continue that they learned in the basics class," Gabriel Alvarez, chef instructor at Washburne.

"Language is a barrier so we created the Spanish version of the program to kind of combat that barrier and meet the student where they are so they can take that opportunity and bring it to an advanced certificate and hopefully take it on to an Associate's degree by attending ELL classes that City Colleges offers at all of their campuses," said Marshall Schafkowitz, Washburne's executive dean.

Alvarez said this new program is an opportunity of a lifetime.

"Teaching culinary arts in my native tongue in Spanish is something completely out of this world because I've spent about 2/3 of my life in this industry and one of the things that I've always heard from a lot of my fellow colleagues is that I wish I could go to culinary school but I just don't know enough English," Alvarez said.

He said this is his chance to help someone else the same way others helped him.

"This program means a lot to me. As a Latino, as an instructor, as a veteran of this industry. 11:58 I get to just give back to anybody who has ever given something to me," Alvarez said. "I'm excited to see where this program goes, not just for the sake of the school but within the Latino community of our industry."

For more information, visit: http://www.washburneculinary.com/