Michael Schwartz has been employed in the kitchens of some of the city's fanciest restaurants, including Osteria del Circo, where he was executive sous chef, and Le Cirque, but his culinary roots are extremely humble. "When I was 14 my dad told me to get a job," reports Schwartz. "A friend of mine was working in a nursing home kitchen where there was a dishwashing opening, so I took it."

Schwartz believes that every experience is an opportunity for learning, however, so even that dishwashing job — which quickly led to a position as cook — offered a lesson. "I learned to respect the people with the worst jobs," says Schwartz. "Dishwashers can make or break your restaurant. Also, I saw that cooks who had started at the bottom knew the system better."

Schwartz continued to work in restaurants through college, paying part of his tuition costs with his earnings. Experience served to point out the shortcomings of relying solely on on-the-job learning, however. "I realized how much was missing from my culinary education," says Schwartz, "so I decided to go to culinary school to fill in the blanks."

After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Schwartz worked in New York and was executive chef at the Back Bay Grill in Maine. "It wasn't exactly fine dining," he notes, "but it was an incredible management learning experience." Today he teaches in the Institute's professional program, as well as offering a few classes in the recreational program, most often on the cuisine of Spain, which is one of his areas of interest. The transition from chef to teacher was a natural one for Schwartz. "Being a chef is like being a teacher already, since a chef teaches every day in a kitchen," he says. "Ultimately, that's one of the best things about being a chef."