D'AGOSTINO UNIT COOKING SCHOOL STIRS THINGS UP

LIZA B. ZIMMERMAN

RYE BROOK, N.Y. -- With culinary students intently bent over their cutting boards in the cozy wood-paneled kitchen, an in-store cooking school is an appetite-whetting attraction at the new D'Agostino supermarket here.

"The cooking school is a major curiosity," confirmed Tony Wys, a butcher in the meat department at the D'Agostino unit.

"It's a way to introduce shoppers to things they ordinarily wouldn't buy because they don't know how to cook them or what to do with them," said Rick Smilow, president of Peter Kump's New York Cooking School, about what is his school's third facility; its other two are in Manhattan.

Officials at D'Agostino headquarters in Larchmont, N.Y., declined to comment about the Rye Brook store, which opened May 1.

However, it was clear that the decision to incorporate a culinary school within a store is a new move for D'Agostino, and Smilow said it represents a union that he called the first of its kind.

Almost all the food for the classes comes from the store, he explained. "We are their biggest customer," joked Smilow.

At the facility, five-session courses on such topics as the techniques of Italian cooking and spa cuisine alternate with single sessions on individual ingredients like lamb and foreign cuisines like Thai.

Smilow said he saw the school as "a way of drawing people from outside their market. People from Greenwich and Scarsdale wouldn't typically shop in this store, but if they are interested in taking classes, they will."

He called the school an amenity for the community as well as for D'Agostino's customers, and one which also functions as an efficient publicity vehicle for many of the fresh products sold in the supermarket.

It's an easy way, he explained, to remind customers that "these delicious meals can be made from things for sale right down the aisle."

Wys said that a lot of people have shown greater interest in the meats that are being used to prepare meals in the school's classes. "They'll come back a week or two later to buy the stuff," he said.

Wys noted that a salmon class during the last week of May, for instance, may have helped further increase salmon sales, which were already going strong because the species was on special that week.

Wys also said, however, that his customers were sticking pretty much to mainstream meat purchases, and that in the short time the store had been open he hadn't seen major differences in customers' buying patterns that he would directly attribute to the presence of the school.

Speaking from behind the counter at what he called Rye Brook's state-of-the-art meat and seafood department -- with an estimated more than 100 feet of self-service case, spread along the walls and in two 36-foot island cases -- Wys said he hoped the meat department and the cooking school would work together more closely in order to cross promote and support each other.

Peter Kump's Smilow said that signage in other departments and perhaps student discounts on ingredients used in the school's recipes are possible promotional ideas. Another concept is "to make shopping lists directly linked to the class available to class members," he said.

In the produce department -- which leads from the meat section toward the cooking school -- produce clerk Ronnie Moore said that although the school was probably pumping produce sales, it was hard to be certain if there were direct connections between classes and sales of specific products. "The school uses everything and people buy everything, so it's hard to tell," he commented.

The produce aisle in Rye Brook offers an entire section of prewashed, packaged lettuce, which sits across from a four-tier case of organic vegetables that runs the gamut from strawberries and peaches to rosemary sprigs. Four island cases also offer a jumble of everything from giant garlic in purple net bags and apple cider to plastic cups of sliced pineapple and barrels of broccoli rabe.

Winding from the produce section around to the floral department, near the registers, brings you to the cooking school. Exposed red brick frames the school's glass doors, which bear the green, red and white D'AG NYC logo as well as the Peter Kump's name.

A sign outside announces, "Another mouth-watering, taste-tempting, great-smelling class in session." Below it an ad teases "Do you think consomme is something that happens during a French honeymoon? We can help."

Spice-filled wood cabinets alternate with the high-tech stoves and sinks lining the walls of the warmly lit classroom. The instructor holds forth at a large rectangular workstation toward the back, as students gather round or spread out at chopping boards at two big tables toward the front. Two large-screen television sets hanging from the ceiling on opposite ends of the room broadcast the action as it unfolds.

The space in front of the school is dedicated to housewares, where wine glasses and espresso machines vie for space with casserole pots and mixers on wooden shelves. A freestanding case of chef's knives and cleavers glimmers in the middle of the section, and pots and colanders hang overhead. The whole area is softly lit and draped in black and white banners, hung from the ceiling, that tout Home & Kitchen.

"People are interested in Martha Stewart and the Television Food Network and how do you put a little of those in your supermarket? You put in a cooking school," concluded Smilow.

The Peter Kump executive went on to note that supermarkets' growing concerns about competition from home-meal replacement outlets might well be addressed by the presence of a cooking school. "If you teach people to cook and enjoy cooking, they will be less likely to go to Boston Chicken."

Smilow added that the opportunity to work with D'Agostino's had been an eye-opening experience. "Everything we need is there and there is traffic in the store. People think it's exciting and they are always looking in at classes."

Although he said it was too early to tell, Smilow thought it likely that the cooking school's presence was driving store sales overall. He said he saw the collaboration with D'Agostino as highly beneficial for both parties.

"They include mention of the school in all their ads [as the front page of June 4 circular attested] and we include mention of the store in our course guide, which gets distributed with the local papers," he said.