Guest chef draws a crowd at Gorecki Dining

The line at Gorecki home cooking was out the door this past Monday as CSB’s main dining hall welcomed guest chef Ahmed Rakshani. This is the first time the CSB campus has hosted a guest chef, a program that has run frequently at SJU’s refectory dining facility since 2023. Rakshani is a chef at Café Renaissance in Waite Park, MN, a fine dining restaurant just a 10-minute drive from St. Ben’s campus. It offers Mediterranean and globally influenced cuisine.

Zak Townsend, CSB’s Executive Chef, previously worked with Rakshani at Café Renaissance.

“Zak had fond memories of working at the restaurant and appreciated Chef Rakshani’s culinary perspective,” Phil Paulson, associate director of CSB Culinary Services said.

When the Guest Chef Series kicked off at Saint Johns’ Refectory two years ago, it started as an initiative to expose students to all different types of cuisine. First proposed by the previous SJU Food Service Director, this series featured chefs from around the Twin Cities area. CSB Culinary was inspired to begin featuring chefs specifically from around the St. Cloud area, according to Paulson.

Rakshani said he was excited to contribute to the campus communities through his food.

“I feel really special to be here, to be part of the community” Rakshani said. “[I hope this will] get some more customers to the restaurant and get some more people trying new things and experience different cultures and food.”

Café Renaissance offers a broad variety of authentic European and Mediterranean cuisine, known to be a very healthy diet recognized for its “local produce, wheat products, such as bread, pastry and pasta, fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and olive oil,” according to the Café Renaissance website.

Some of the menu options brought to Saint Ben’s include their Moroccan tagine, saffron rice, tabbouleh, shirazi salad, pita chips, tzatziki sauce, and hummus, as well as lots of vegan-friendly options.

All of these dishes were inspired and created by Chef Rakshani, and Paulson said the CSB Culinary team was excited to bring in food options not commonly found in Gorecki and use the menu as inspiration for future food offerings.

At this lunch, students said they appreciated the quality of the food, which is consistent with existing feedback from previous celebrity chef features at SJU.

“I just took my first couple of bites and so far, it’s really good…I’m really enjoying it,” Evan Raske, SJU sophomore said.

Other student feedback focused on the price accessibility of trying new foods by featuring them in the dining halls.

“There’s some really great Mediterranean places near my house, and so I think it’s kind of nice to experience that here at CSB in one of our dining halls, where you don’t have to go out and pay for it,” Grace Morphew, CSB sophomore said.

Overall, the reaction to extending the Guest Chef Series to the CSB campus has been positive, since some students noted that they provided feedback asking for both campuses to feature guest chefs to increase student access since the original series launch at the Reef.

“There are so many unique restaurants in the area, and it’s great to get little tastes of them here on campus. When offered at both campuses, guest chefs like this familiarize students with what’s in the area and entice them to try new things,” Abby Schunk, CSB sophomore said