With more than 30 years experience cooking for upscale restaurants in England and Switzerland, Executive Chef Daniel Honan now shares his expertise with students at SF State's fine-dining restaurant, Vista Room.

Honan’s experience gives him the ability to manage and teach nearly 30 students at a time. Instruction includes kitchen operation and how to create French-influenced dishes such as bacon-wrapped Maine monkfish stuffed with avocado and lobster meat, pancetta wrapped veal tenderloin, and Jerusalem artichoke soup.

“We try to teach the students basic skills of working in an upscale kitchen and serving on the floor,” Honan said. “This is a professional setting, so we try to give them some managerial skills and experience, as well as proper service etiquette when interacting with guests.”

At about 6:30 a.m. Honan begins chopping vegetables, stuffing meat for the day’s menu and making sure all of the critical aspects of the kitchen are in order when students arrive.

Honan said the Vista Room setting can be very similar to the popular downtown San Francisco restaurants he has worked at.

Although many of the students working in the Vista Room are hospitality management and dietetics majors who are required to work in the restaurant for at least one semester, the program also attracts students from other majors who want to learn the restaurant business, etiquette and customer service skills.

Thien Nguyen, 21, is majoring in urban studies and speech communication but chose to work in the Vista Room as part of SF State’s work-study program. With the training he has received from Honan and others he feels like he has learned more about working in a kitchen in the past two semesters than ever before in his life.

“I was originally interested in office jobs for work-study, but then came an opening from nowhere,” Nguyen said while peeling carrots before lunch service. “It’s a great way to connect with people and a great opportunity to get into the field and expand your career options.”

Nguyen said he enjoys the pace of the restaurant, especially coming into it with no experience. He also enjoys working with other students and teaching them what he has learned over the past year.

“I generally am pretty relaxed but sometimes it can be stressful, especially when people aren’t performing well or if the chef or manager is breathing down your neck,” Nguyen said. “Everyone seems to get it eventually after about six or seven weeks. The managers and chef…are very knowledgeable and good at training everyone.”

He now envisions himself possibly opening a family-style restaurant with a comfortable atmosphere one day. He feels that his training by Honan and others could make that a reality one day, if he stays in the field.

The restaurant experience teaches students about hospitality, cuisine, nutrition and health, which are integral parts of other majors such as child adolescent development (CAD).

Floor Manager Janine Pasqual, 22, is double majoring in hospitality management and CAD. Upon graduation she wants to teach nutrition and home economics to children while at the same time open her own café or English tea-house.

“Working here has taught me all about food and nutrition,” Pascual said while setting tables. “It also teaches good communication skills and how to deal with sudden situations.”