April 1—Corned beef quesadilla, lime-marinated chicken with chipotle potatoes au gratin and fried bananas with coconut ice cream sound like items straight from the menu of a hip bistro.
But that’s the lineup students at campus dining halls were treated to thanks to the Visiting Chef series, a program launched by Dining Services at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, two years ago to inject a change of pace into the menu and introduce students to options for eating out off-campus.
Dining Services prepared a menu created by Jason Viteri, chef and kitchen manager at Garcia Brogan’s, an Irish-Mexican restaurant in downtown Lowell. Viteri shared his recipes and instructed dining services staff how to prepare them over spring break. UMass Lowell Dining Executive Chef Timothy Conklin then scaled the recipes to serve 2,500 at South Campus’ Mill City Restaurant, the Inn and Conference Center and the Dining Commons at Fox Hall.