Professional Cooking

Can you picture yourself plating a hundred covers on a Saturday night and still getting the sauce right? Assiniboine’s Professional Cooking certificate is an intensive 32-week programme that trains you for commercial kitchens. It is taught at the Manitoba Institute of Culinary Arts on Assiniboine’s North Hill campus in Brandon, and runs as a cohort with intakes in September 2026 and May 2027.

Cooking Fundamentals, Cooking Principles and Culinary Skills teach knife work, heat and classic methods from day one. You then build station by station through Stocks, Soups and Sauces 1, Vegetables/Fruits/Starches 1, Meats and Poultry 1, Breakfast Cookery, Garde Manger 1 for cold kitchen work and Patisserie 1 for pastry and baking. Culinary Applications 1 brings the stations together, while Menu Planning and Food Costing and Hospitality 1 show you how a kitchen runs as a business.

Alongside the cooking courses you complete the short certifications Manitoba kitchens expect: FoodSafe 1, 1st Aid - Emergency, Fire Safety, WHMIS 1 and Smart Choices for responsible alcohol service. The programme ends with Level 1 Final Practical Cook and Level 1 Final Theory Cook, the Level 1 Cook examinations for the Apprenticeship and Trades Qualification Board of Manitoba, so you leave with the first stage of the cook apprenticeship already behind you.

Professional Cooking graduates work in hotels, restaurants, resorts, institutional kitchens such as hospitals and care homes, and catering companies. Typical first roles are line cook, prep cook, apprentice cook, banquet cook, breakfast cook and pastry assistant. The certificate suits people who like fast, physical work, can take direction under pressure and want a structured start towards the full cook apprenticeship rather than learning only on the job.