One of Bend’s toniest restaurants just opened on the city’s west side.

Light classical music greets diners before they even walk through the entrance, as well as a fireplace built into the building’s wall that flickers off metal and glass.

Mood lighting and white tablecloths await inside. Servers in pressed uniforms and shined shoes explain menu offerings such as crispy sous vide cider-brined pork belly, served with a warm fennel salad, late harvest tomatoes and potatoes dauphin.

Yet Elevation isn’t just a restaurant. The servers and chefs are students first, and the hope is that the customers are willing to become part of their learning experience.

Elevation is a key element in the sparkling new Jungers Cascade Culinary Institute Center on Bend’s Central Oregon Community College campus. The facility opened Sept. 19, the start of the term. It was largely built with $3 million in donations from the public, with $1 million of that coming from Bend residents Frank and Julie Jungers.

Elevation’s soft opening followed shortly thereafter. The public is now welcome to dine at lunch, happy hour and dinner (see “If you go”). Reservations are preferred.

The concept, said Cascade Culinary Institute Director Gene Fritz, is for Elevation to serve as the capstone course in the institute’s two-year program. And along with gaining real-world experience before moving on to jobs and internships, students get instantaneous feedback.

Diners will have multiple ways to comment on their experience, from computer tablets brought to tables to a kiosk in the center’s entry to a website.

“I’m trying to have the faculty really focus on daily assessment,” Fritz said. “We’re here in classrooms, not kitchens.”

A new culture

Bearing a silver tray of smoked wild salmon beignets, Bethany Mahlberg paused from serving guests at a private event Wednesday to say she’s thrilled to complete her second year in the program in the new facility.

“It’s amazing to have this opportunity in Central Oregon,” the La Pine native said. “The chef culture here is going to change because of this.”

The Cascade Culinary Institute began in 1993 using a kitchen designed for cafeteria service.

Before long, culinary students started putting together weekly lunches and dinners for the public, which featured fine cuisine, table service and ambiance designed by the students. They also provided services for private events.

Elevation takes that up a level. Fritz said students get the practice to perfect skills three days a week in the deadline-driven intensity of a restaurant.

They also do it in a state-of-the-art facility. The new center features four kitchens, complete with green touches like radiant floor heat and hood fans that kick in only once the smoke or temperature climbs to a certain level.

It also contains a library, with glossy wood bookshelves climbing to the ceiling, and one of its kitchens is a theater-style demonstration setting. Two video cameras can zero in on what is happening on the stove while students in multiple classrooms see the technique up close on TV screens.

The attention to detail, Fritz said, was deliberate: Long before Fritz joined the team in January, COCC had hoped to grow the culinary institute into a destination program for the western United States. The program now has roughly 125 students.

“Even though we’re part of the community college, the goal is to reach out into the broader community and beyond the district,” Fritz said.

Students participate in the restaurant at several levels.

They manage the food ordering and inventory — necessary business skills for any restaurant. They come up with the menus. Then they serve half the term in the kitchen and the other half as servers.

Understanding good service, Fritz said, is a critical element even if students keep their careers in the kitchen.

“I always tell people, ‘If you don’t like service, this isn’t an industry for you,’” he said.

Dining in style

For the Elevation patron, much of the students’ work takes place behind the scenes.

What they experience is a restaurant that seats 72, with patio seating for 24 expected to open this spring. An area of the restaurant can be secluded for smaller parties.

The food is largely organic, regional and seasonal. Plus, the items on the menu are made in-house, from the Willamette Valley hazelnut chocolate cake to the appetizer plate of cured meats.

“We have farmers coming with their produce once every couple of days,” Fritz said.

Lunch features a starter, entree and dessert. The happy hour is a tapas buffet. Dinner offers an expanded menu of appetizers or salads, entrees and dessert, as well as a few sides available for a bit extra.

The menus are prix fixe — fixed price — but have an a la carte element. So diners can choose among appetizers and salads, three entrees and sometimes among desserts. The appetizers, salads and desserts rotate every week, so the frequent visitor can always have a new experience.

Right now all three menus are similar, offering entrees like spice-rubbed wild salmon en papillote with grilled romaine, tart apples and a lemon aioli, or grilled hanger steak with brulee onion glace, kale and fingerling frites. Dinner’s options are expanded.

About 25 wines, many from Oregon, are featured on the list, with options by both the bottle and glass. For beer, two Deschutes brews and Full Sail Elevation Ale are currently available. Fritz said the intent is rotate the beer offerings from among local breweries.

The surveys will be presented at the end of the meal, and Fritz said he expects them to take less than four minutes to complete. Not all the technology is in place yet — the kiosk is still on its way — but it should be soon.

Fritz said he is offering different feedback tools to make sure patrons are comfortable responding.

“So often in our industry, customers have feedback but they don’t share it with the restaurant,” he said. “They tell their friends, but they don’t tell us.”

So far if there has been a criticism, the most common one has been too much salt.

Fritz wants the comments to keep on coming.

“We’re not focused on competing with local restaurants,” he said. “We need customers to engage in the learning experience.”

Skills in action

On Wednesday, students put their skills on display for the more than 100 people attending a United Way of Deschutes County thank you event.

They sipped wine and noshed on appetizers such as heirloom beets with chevre and pork rillette with pickled fennel. It was the first visit for many guests, who took student-guided tours through the facility.

Fritz said so far Elevation has garnered great community response, particularly from people wanting to book private parties.

“We’ve had hardly any time to open and run because we keeping having events,” he said, smiling.

Darleen Rodgers, the United Way’s director of resource development, said Elevation was an obvious choice for the event.

“We thought guests would enjoy the setting and we also knew the history of the quality of the food,” she said Thursday.

Afterward, she described Elevation as aesthetically pleasing and intimate.

“The lovely presentation, the set up, the menu,” she said, “it all worked out very well.”

Cascade Culinary Institute restaurant, Elevation

Location: 2555 N.W. Campus Village Way, Bend

Hours: Through Nov. 23: Lunch seating 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Thursdays. Peak tapas buffet 4:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesdays to Fridays. Dinner 6-8:30 p.m. Wednesdays to Fridays

Price range: Prix fixe lunch for $15; Peak tapas buffet for $8, with $4 beer or wine; prix fixe dinner for $19

Credit cards: Will soon be accepted

Kids’ menu: No

Vegetarian menu: Options available

Alcoholic beverages: Yes

Outdoor seating: Will open in spring

Reservations: Preferred

Contact: elevationbend.com or 877-541-2433