Teaching

Chef Christopher Koetke has spent the two decades teaching at Kendall College and traveling the world to share his culinary techniques.

In 1998, Chef had an opportunity to enter the world of culinary education at Kendall College.  Teaching was not part of his long range plan at the time as he had dedicated his professional life to becoming the best chef that he could be. But life sometimes presents opportunities which were previously not part of the plan. When Chris left the daily life of a chef, he envisioned a temporary hiatus as a full time teacher.  To his surprise, he fell in love with teaching. 

For the next 20 years, his job title at Kendall College changed from chef instructor, to associate dean, dean, executive director, and eventually vice president.  During this time, he was fortunate to spearhead Kendall’s culinary school development, multi-million dollar build-out, and move to the Riverworks facility in downtown Chicago. Chef was also fortunate to lead a world-class faculty and a sustainability initiative that would define the culinary program for the next decade.

During his tenure at Kendall College, his role grew internationally as Kendall became part of Laureate International Universities. This ultimately resulted in his direct responsibility to 48 campuses in 12 countries where culinary arts were taught.  It gave him an unprecedented opportunity to knit these global programs together into a community, improve quality, and launch initiatives like the Laureate Culinary Cup—an international culinary competition. He also had the opportunity to work with deeply committed professionals around the world.

During his years in education, he continued to grow professionally outside of the educational world.  This included industry consulting, national and international speaking engagements, co-writing a culinary arts textbook, and a national culinary TV show that spanned almost 5 years.

Teaching is a privilege and is magical. At Complete Culinary, education is part of many of the consulting activities whether in a formal educational environment, professional development, or training sessions