Research methodology

Workflow

1. Discover a school. Secondary directories and search results are discovery sources only; they never verify a fact.
2. Verify identity and operation on the school’s own website.
3. Confirm the teaching campus (where kitchens and classes are), not the head office or an admissions office.
4. Confirm the program and its exact award on official program pages, and who issues the award.
5. Classify the purpose: initial professional preparation, professional development, academic study or research, or recreational learning.
6. Verify recognition against an accreditor’s, regulator’s or awarding body’s own record where one can be reached.
7. Extract language, duration and practical hours, keeping teaching hours, kitchen hours and credits apart.
8. Extract admissions, with years on deadlines. Old deadlines are never rolled forward.
9. Extract tuition and extras with currency, basis, period and fee category, plus mandatory extras such as uniforms and knife kits.
10. Verify internship claims and record the arrangement exactly as published.
11. Record funding as published: type, eligibility, amount, whether guaranteed or competitive.
12. Save sources (URL and a verbatim quote). A script re-fetches the pages and checks that each quote is still present; facts whose quote cannot be found are withheld or downgraded.
13. Deduplicate and publish after review.

Who is included

Dedicated culinary schools and institutes, universities, colleges, vocational institutions and specialist baking and pastry schools, and other identifiable providers of structured professional training. For degrees delivered with a partner we name the institution that actually awards the degree. Wine, hospitality, nutrition and food science are related subjects and are included only when the specific program is a culinary program.

Excluded: unverified providers, recipe websites, informal coaching without an identifiable program, marketplaces without a verifiable provider, attendance badges presented as qualifications, and restaurants without an educational offering.

Qualification categories

We store the exact official award, who issues it, and whether it is academic, vocational or issued by the school itself. A private certificate or diploma is never relabelled as an academic degree, and a qualification-framework level does not rename an award. Recreational classes are classified separately and kept out of professional results.

Coverage

Research began with a set of destinations on several continents (see countries). These are starting points, not a claim of equal market size or complete coverage. Counts anywhere on the site come from the database, and each country page shows its research status and review date. Gaps are tracked, not hidden.

Costs and currency

The original currency is authoritative. We do not convert currencies, rank by price, or compare annual tuition with whole-program tuition without saying so. Tuition, mandatory extras, accommodation and living costs are separate lines.

Editorial selections

Researched selections, where published, are unnumbered, state their scope, criteria, sources and limitations, and carry a review date. Sponsored schools cannot buy inclusion or order.

What we do not do

• We do not invent schools, programs, awards, recognition, tuition, admissions, facilities, internships, funding, reviews, rankings, employment rates or salaries.
• We do not call any program or school “recognized worldwide”. There is no universal culinary accreditation, and association membership is not accreditation.
• We do not treat a restaurant logo or partner list as proof of a current training partnership.
• We do not bypass bot protection or access restrictions to gather data. Where an official register could not be reached, the status says so.

Corrections and freshness

Tuition, deadlines and programs change. Each record shows when it was last checked; records not checked for six months are marked for review. See corrections and verification explained.