Cook with purpose. Create with identity. Evolve as a professional.

Contemporary Culinary Arts demands technical excellence, in-depth product knowledge and creative judgement to generate real value in professional gastronomic projects.

The Master’s in Culinary Arts: Technique, Product and Creativity at Basque Culinary Center is designed for professional Chefs who want to take a decisive step forward in their careers. A program that transforms experience into method, intuition into professional judgement and creativity into a structured, applicable skill within today’s culinary industry.

Why this Master’s will transform your career:

• Creativity grounded in knowledge: You will develop a structured culinary creativity based on product knowledge, technical mastery and contextual understanding. Learn to create dishes with meaning, coherence and a strong professional identity.
• Advanced techniques and trends serving the concept: Work with advanced culinary techniques, new equipment and contemporary trends as tools to design and develop dishes with purpose, always aligned with the gastronomic concept.
• 100% practical methodology · Learning by doing: The program follows a practical, experiential approach that combines practical workshops, Learning Journeys to explore ingredients at their origin, the development of a Master’s Final Project, and a real dining event for real guests where you will put your creativity and professional performance to the test. The training is completed with professional internships in leading restaurants.
• Immersion in the Basque Culinary Center ecosystem: Through masterclasses with renowned chefs and industry experts, and continuous interaction with an environment fully immersed in gastronomy, you will expand your professional vision and become part of an international culinary network.
• Real professional development: By the end of the Master’s, you will be a chef with stronger professional judgement, capable of understanding ingredients, applying technique with intention and adding creative value in diverse culinary contexts, both within established teams and in your own future projects.

Upon completing the Master’s, you will be prepared to grow within contemporary gastronomy, contributing greater professional judgement, creative capacity and value across different culinary settings.

The main career paths include:

The Master’s in Culinary Arts: Technique, Product and Creativity is delivered through the learning by doing methodology, based on practice, experimentation and collaborative learning. This approach allows you to acquire core competencies and progress toward specialized applications. The curriculum is designed in progressive phases, integrating theoretical classes with practical activities and real projects.

• Lectures and presentations: on culinary techniques, product, creativity or the physicochemistry of food, among other topics. Sessions delivered by experts from the gastronomic field that help students acquire a critical and strategic vision.
• Practical workshops: kitchen hours to put into practice the work with products and the techniques of the program: rice, offal, fish, fermentations, new machinery and much more.
• Masterclasses with leading figures in the sector: they address emerging trends, creative processes, authorship and differentiation strategies in contemporary cuisine. These sessions offer a direct connection with the reality of the sector and its leaders.
• Gastronomic activities: tastings, samplings, workshops and sensory experiences aimed at the technical-nutritional understanding of ingredients, their physicochemical properties and their behavior under different culinary techniques.
• Challenges and problem-solving dynamics: designed to strengthen competencies such as applied creativity, time management and adaptability in the kitchen. Each challenge invites students to solve real situations from a professional environment.
• Simulations and practice in real settings: such as the Faculty restaurant, where participants take on active roles in the kitchen and in service. This operating space makes it possible to work under real conditions, executing proposals before real guests.

To enhance the learning experience, the Master’s includes meals in leading restaurants and the intensive stay concludes with a Learning Journey of 2-3 days to meet producers and gastronomic projects that have a direct relationship with the product and the gastronomic experience.

In previous editions, students have visited Bodega El Capricho, an exclusive experience around ox meat, and have enjoyed gastronomic experiences in Michelin-starred spaces such as restaurant Ikaro or Barro.

During the Master’s, you will work as a team to develop an experimental gastronomic tasting menu of 15-18 courses, in a project that reproduces a real professional environment.

You will go through every stage of the process —conceptualisation, development and execution— with the support of the teaching team.

The project culminates in a dinner service before a jury of industry professionals and Basque Culinary Center lecturers, who will assess the technical and creative proposal and the overall gastronomic experience.

You will be able to put your knowledge into practice and gain relevant experience for your professional career. During the process, we manage your internship, taking into account your profile and the opportunities available.

You will have an information session and personalised guidance with the coordinator to evaluate options and adjust expectations. It is important to consider your current situation and professional goals, as internships require three months of full-time dedication, with the possibility of extension. If you have a senior profile, you may validate your previous experience.

Get inspired by the Master’s Final Project dinner of our students:

The Master’s in Culinary Arts: Technique, Product and Creativity has a teaching team made up of chef-lecturers from Basque Culinary Center, with recognized academic and professional experience, together with multidisciplinary experts in product, nutrition and food science, essential to understanding cuisine from an integral perspective.

The program is enriched by masterclasses and seminars from leading restaurants, which bring into the classroom an up-to-date vision of gastronomic innovation and creativity.

Our Master’s features an exceptional line-up of world-renowned guest chefs and industry leaders who contribute their vision, technique and creative approach to contemporary gastronomy. Their masterclasses, demonstrations and dialogues offer students direct contact with global culinary excellence and the diversity of today’s gastronomic landscape.

These are some of the chefs who have recently been part of our Guest Chefs Program:

The Master’s in Culinary Arts: Technique, Product and Creativity has an admission process that ensures candidates have the academic level and competencies needed to successfully complete a demanding study program.

This Master’s is aimed both at professionals with university studies and at those who, without holding a university degree, can demonstrate relevant experience in the sector.

Basque Culinary Center’s admission system has a dual objective:

• To ensure that candidates have the academic level and personal competencies needed to successfully take on an innovative, practical study program.
• To check that the Master’s meets the training needs and interests of the candidates.

Complete the online application and pay the registration fee of 150 €, refundable if you are not admitted.

Complete the Application Presentation Questionnaire, which will help us get to know your profile and your interests in the Master’s. Please have the following documents ready:

• Updated curriculum vitae.
• 1 passport-sized photo.
• Copy of your ID card or passport.
• Academic certificate of the studies completed (transcript, diploma or certificate). - Submitting certificates is not compulsory, but including them will be valued positively if you have them.

• Take part in the online personal interview with the Master’s Coordinator, an opportunity to get to know you better, resolve doubts and raise questions about the program.
• Both the documentation submitted and the outcome of the interview will be assessed.
• You will receive the admission decision together with the next steps to follow.

If you are admitted, you will need to pay 25% of the Master’s fee within the indicated period to reserve your place.

To take a training program lasting more than 90 days, students from countries outside the Schengen area (check the list of countries) need to apply for a LONG-TERM STUDENT VISA in order to reside legally in Spain. The Faculty will provide each student with the documentation needed to process the visa once the place reservation has been confirmed.

In addition, the student must complete the remaining requirements indicated by the Embassy of Spain. You can consult the full process in this section on pre-travel procedures. Basque Culinary Center will provide the following academic documentation, required for the visa application:

• Enrollment certificate signed and stamped by Basque Culinary Center.
• Study program stamped by Basque Culinary Center.
• Academic calendar stamped by Basque Culinary Center.