This has been bothering us since we started seeing their commercial claiming each year they sent 100 chefs to a culinary institute in Tuscany, happy someone got off the couch and decided to get the back story. Here’s the expose courtesy of Slash Food:
This according to a former Olive Garden manager, who’s causing a flurry of discussion at Reddit (much of it oddly trading on obscene jokes about breadsticks-you’ve been warned). The manager, posting as FIDELIA079, claims that he scored a lucky, all-expense-paid (except souvenirs) trip to the chain’s Tuscan “culinary institute” in 2007.
It seems the Olive Garden doesn’t even own the place. They just book all the rooms at some hotel in the off-season, close the place to the public, and take over the restaurant. Sporadic “classes” lasted “maybe an hour here or there” where they would “talk about spices or fresh produce for a minute” before taking the group site-seeing for the day. Lots of drinking ensued.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Um duh lol. I doubt their chefs went to culinary school period. Who goes to culinary school then works at Olive Garden? Lol Food snobs don’t even eat at Olive Garden.
Exactly!
Man, the only way to enjoy Olive Garden is to go there expecting cheap, greasy and americanized italian food. That is my mindset and why I am not ashamed to say that I enjoy a little Olive Garden now and again.
i use to work at a olive garden in virginia… i’ll never eat there
no shit sherlock ur a dumbass if u actually believed they go all the way 2 italy 2 do real cooking