Twice a year, Bellingham Technical College (BTC) presents the community of Whatcom County with the opportunity to enjoy food made by their own culinary students at Café Culinaire. The cafe was started around 20 years ago by Michael Baldwin, a former chef instructor at BTC. Now, the program is taught by Nicole Carter. Carter has been working at BTC for 14 years and discovered her love of cooking through her mother.
“My mom was the worst cook on the planet; [learning to cook was a matter of] survival at one point,” says Carter. Since then, she has worked as a line cook, a restaurant manager, a private chef, a bartender, a waitress, a caterer, a butcher, and now a chef instructor. “I was bouncing around because I wanted to learn it all…I found my passion at a young age and I feel really privileged.”
Café Culinaire’s three-course tasting menu allows the students to get some real-world experience both cooking for the public and working front-of-house. The students switch back and forth between these roles every 3 weeks.
“Having the public come in is super important, [the students] get live feedback and we have comment cards. If there are customer issues, they deal with them… and we make sure they’re ready for that,” says Carter.
Carter works with other chef instructors to pick the recipes for Café Culinaire. They do their best to work with dietary restrictions, providing vegetarian and gluten-free options on every menu. Each dish caters to the students’ skill levels, as Carter wants to make sure the students are growing within their abilities.
“I always like to say, I’ll let you struggle, [but] I won’t let you fail,” says Carter.
Not only does Carter pick the meals, but she also does all the grocery shopping for the department. Carter intentionally purchases from several local businesses such as Puget Sound Food Hub Cooperative, Acme Farms+Kitchen, Charlie’s Produce, Grace Harbor Farms, Twin Sisters Creamery, and Boldly Grown Farm.
There are different themes for the winter and spring quarters, with past themes including the Pacific Northwest and International Cuisine. The themes are always well-loved by the public, which is shown in how quickly the reservations sell out.
“It sells out in about four seconds and I get hundreds of emails…I wish we could have a better way for [more] people to experience it,” says Carter.
For the past two years, construction on the Campus Center building has forced Café Culinaire to relocate to a classroom in the G Building on campus; the work is expected to be completed sometime in 2026. Since the move to this smaller space, the Café’s capacity has decreased from 36 to 24 working students and 13 to 11 tables for diners. As such, getting a seat at the cafe has become more competitive than ever. If you’re thinking of getting a reservation, make sure to email Carter before 9 a.m. when the cafe opens for the season and check the menu on their website! 3029 Lindbergh Ave., Bellingham, 360.752.7000, btc.edu
