Where passion meets the plate: Inside San Francisco's Culinary Clash

SAN FRANCISCO -- For three nights a year, the elegant Luce Room at the InterContinental San Francisco transforms into something extraordinary - a proving ground where culinary students don't just cook, they run the whole show.

Culinary Clash, now in its second decade, pairs students from City College of San Francisco's Culinary Arts and Hospitality Program with one of the city's premier hotel kitchens. The result is an immersive, high-stakes dinner service that gives emerging chefs a taste of the real thing before they ever graduate.

"It's a great opportunity to see the restaurant and work in a full-running restaurant before they graduate," says Norma Whitt, Director of Food and Beverage and Culinary Operations at the InterContinental San Francisco, which launched the competition back in 2012. The hotel has been partnered with CCSF, the longest-running culinary program in the country, since 2019, a collaboration Whitt calls a point of pride.

Three teams of two students are chosen to compete in the annual competition. This season's first featured duo, Maliah Chin and Edward Castorena, have been preparing for months. "Ever since I got any sort of details, I found my partner," Edward says. "We've been brainstorming, practicing, trying a lot of stuff since months ago in preparation."

Their menu is a love letter to their roots - a Peruvian-Filipino fusion that Maliah describes as "the taste of our childhoods." The evening opens with a calamansi ceviche built around leche de tigre, coconut vinegar, and Peruvian aji amarillo, followed by an adobo-seared duck with yucca and parsnip purée, and a stuffed mustard green evoking veggie lumpia. The finale: a leche flan delicately flavored with kabocha squash-"a big part in Peruvian flavors and Filipino flavors," Edward explains.

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Both competitors bring deeply personal stories to the kitchen. Edward learned to cook alongside his mother, Edith Castorena, a 42-year industry veteran and CCSF alumna herself. Maliah arrived from a tech background, drawn back to food by something harder to quantify. "Every single memory I've ever had that was important, shared a plate of food," she says. "That's always been kind of my love language."

Beyond the dinner service, Culinary Clash offers participants scholarship money, professional headshots, and resume support, with many alumni going on to land real industry roles.

At the conclusion of the 2026 competition, Maliah and Ed earned 2nd place.

For Whitt, the program is as much about discovery as development. "Each student brings a different perspective," she says, "but also it's an opportunity for us to fine tune and help their vision come to life."

As for Edward, the experience has already exceeded expectations: "We're just having the times of our lives."