Why None of Marrow's Chefs Went to Culinary School

None of Marrow's three chef-owners went to culinary school. Not one.

No Le Cordon Bleu. No Culinary Institute of America. No formal degree in the culinary arts. Yet together, we've served over 2,500 events, earned more than 650 five-star reviews, and been named Best Chef on the Emerald Coast two years running.

That's not despite skipping culinary school. In many ways, it's because we skipped it.

Here's why none of us went, and what we learned instead.

The Traditional Path We Didn't Take

Culinary school trains chefs in classical technique, French foundations, and the discipline required to work in professional kitchens. For many chefs, it's the right path. For us, it wasn't necessary — and in some ways, it would have been limiting.

Why we didn't go:

Cost: Culinary school is expensive. Tuition can easily exceed $30,000-$50,000 for a two-year program. That's debt before you've earned a paycheck. We chose to learn on the job and get paid while doing it.

Time: Culinary school takes two to four years. We were working in professional kitchens during that same timeframe, gaining real-world experience and learning from chefs who had been cooking for decades.

Philosophy: Culinary school teaches you to follow rules — classical techniques, plating standards, flavor profiles that have been codified for generations. That's valuable, but it can also stifle creativity. We wanted to learn the foundations, then break the rules when it made sense.

Where We Actually Learned

We learned in professional kitchens. On the line, under pressure, with chefs who had built their careers through repetition and refinement.

Richard McCord and Ryan McNay came up through restaurants on the Emerald Coast, working every station, learning prep, understanding timing, and building the muscle memory that defines professional cooking.

Chris Mongogna worked directly with Emeril Lagasse as the opening sous chef at Emeril's Coastal Italian. He helped train Emeril Lagasse Jr., who went on to earn two Michelin stars in 2025 at Emeril's in New Orleans. That's the kind of education you can't get in a classroom.

The lessons weren't theoretical. They were immediate: How do you recover when a dish goes out wrong? How do you manage a Friday night rush with three stations backed up? How do you build flavor in a sauce when you don't have time to start over?

Culinary school teaches technique. Professional kitchens teach problem-solving.

What We Gained by Skipping School

Not going to culinary school forced us to learn differently — and in some ways, better.

We learned to trust our palate over rules.

Culinary school teaches that certain ingredients pair in specific ways, that dishes follow established structures, that technique matters more than intuition. All of that is useful, but it can also create rigidity.

Because we learned on the job, we weren't constrained by classical training. If a technique worked and guests loved it, we kept it. If a pairing made sense to our palate even though it wasn't traditional, we tried it. The tuna wontons — one of our most popular dishes — wouldn't exist if we'd followed classical French training.

We measured success by guest satisfaction, not technical perfection.

In culinary school, success is measured by how well you execute a recipe or how closely your dish matches the instructor's standard. In professional kitchens, success is measured by whether the guest enjoyed the meal and came back.

That shift in metrics changes everything. A dish can be technically flawless but fail to connect emotionally. Or it can be imperfect by classical standards but create a memory the guest talks about for years.

We optimize for the guest, not the technique. That's a mindset you don't always get in school.

We learned to adapt, not replicate.

Culinary school trains you to replicate dishes with precision. Professional kitchens train you to adapt when things go wrong — when an ingredient isn't available, when a guest has a severe allergy, when the oven breaks mid-service.

Adaptability is what defines a working chef. It's not about cooking the perfect dish in ideal conditions. It's about cooking a great dish when nothing is ideal.

We built confidence through repetition, not validation.

Culinary school gives you a credential. Professional kitchens give you confidence. After hundreds of services, thousands of dishes, and years of feedback from guests and chefs, you know whether you can cook. You don't need a degree to confirm it.

What Culinary School Teaches That We Had to Learn Differently

There are things culinary school does well, and we had to find other ways to learn them.

Classical technique: We learned this from chefs who had been trained classically. They taught us knife skills, mother sauces, French terminology, and the foundations that underpin most modern cooking. We just learned it on the job instead of in a classroom.

Discipline and consistency: Culinary school instills discipline — showing up on time, maintaining mise en place, following systems. We learned this through the high-pressure environment of professional kitchens, where inconsistency gets you fired.

Breadth of exposure: Culinary school exposes you to cuisines and techniques you might not encounter in a single restaurant. We had to seek that out ourselves — working in different kitchens, experimenting during downtime, and studying techniques on our own.

The education was there. It just came from mentors, experience, and deliberate practice rather than a structured curriculum.

The Philosophy It Shaped

Not going to culinary school shaped how we think about food and how we run Marrow.

We value results over credentials.

When we hire chefs or build our team, we care more about what they can do than where they trained. Can they execute under pressure? Do they understand flavor? Are they adaptable? Those qualities matter more than a degree.

We're not bound by tradition.

We respect classical technique, but we're not constrained by it. If a modernist technique improves a dish, we use it. If Southern tradition serves the ingredient better than French technique, we lean into that. Our culinary philosophy — scratch-made, Gulf-to-Table, Southern tradition with modern technique — reflects that flexibility.

We measure success by guest satisfaction.

Over 2,500 events. More than 650 five-star reviews. Best Chef on the Emerald Coast in 2023 and 2024. Those aren't achievements you earn in a classroom. They're built through consistency, care, and a relentless focus on the guest experience.

Every meal we serve is judged by whether the guest enjoyed it, not by whether it followed classical rules. That's the standard we hold ourselves to.

The Bottom Line

Culinary school is a valid path. For many chefs, it's the right one. But it's not the only one.

We learned in professional kitchens, under pressure, from chefs who had decades of experience. We built our skills through repetition, feedback, and a willingness to adapt. And we optimized for guest satisfaction rather than technical perfection.

The result is a team that cooks from experience, not theory. That values creativity as much as technique. And that measures success by the memories we create, not the credentials we hold.

You don't need a degree to be a great chef. You need a commitment to the craft, a willingness to learn, and the discipline to execute at a high level — every single time.

That's what we bring to every event. And it's why none of us needed culinary school to get here.

Explore our menus to see what we create, or learn more about our approach to private chef service on the Emerald Coast.

Reserve your experience and taste the difference hands-on training makes.