Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Mark Bratton, executive chef of West End Market dining center at Virginia Tech, will serve as one of eight guest chefs from universities across the country during the 2007-08 school year at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

A taste of Tech

On his trip to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, some of the dishes West End Market's executive chef Mark Bratton will prepare include some of the most popular dishes at West End:

• London broil
• Roasted garlic whipped mashed potatoes
• Fresh tomato halves in olive oil and Italian seasoning and a blend of mozzarella and provolone cheeses, broiled
• Crispy boneless chicken seasoned with salt and pepper and then grilled
• Crispy fried onions
• Cream of crab soup flavored with Old Bay and sherry to represent Virginia's Tidewater area

BLACKSBURG -- A taste of Virginia Tech will soon be introduced to the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Mark Bratton, West End Market dining center's executive chef has been invited by UMass to serve as one of eight guest chefs from universities across the country during the 2007-08 school year. Tech was voted as having the best university dining services by the Princeton Review for 2008.

"The whole idea behind this is that there is so much talent out there, and to introduce the students to it," said Ken Toong, director of dining for UMass. "And in the meantime it will showcase original cuisine of the particular [school's] area, and our staff can learn some of the skill sets and tricks of the trade."

Bratton said any recognition of West End's food and services comes from listening to the students' suggestions.

"It's exciting to do something new," Bratton said. "When you're in a private restaurant, you go out there and talk to your customers."

Bratton said it's no different in a college dining hall. "Students are vocal about what they want if you ask them."

Bratton, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in New York, cooks in one of the food shops in West End Market with workers, including students, each weekday and some evenings. He tries to focus as much on teaching as on the food.

"It gives them comfort in learning by seeing," he said. "And I think the students like to see whole potatoes being put in a pan, and in the mixer because they know that what they're getting isn't from a bag."

"Mark really cares that you understand the process of cooking," said John Barrett, senior unit manager at West End Market.

At the UMass event, to be held Monday through Thursday, Bratton and a team of its chefs will serve nearly 3,000 students in the campus' main dining center, and meet and greet the students afterward.

Other schools sending guest chefs include Notre Dame, Harvard and the University of Iowa.

To be invited, the schools must have a strong dining program, an executive chef serving the program and membership in the National Association of College and University Food Services, Toong said.

After the visiting schools were chosen, it was up to those schools to select which chefs they sent to Massachusetts.

"We really chose Mark for a couple reasons," said Rick Johnson, director of housing and dining services at Tech. "He's a very accomplished chef who's worked at some of the best restaurants in the country, and he's the executive chef at our number one facility on campus."

This is the first year UMass has invited university chefs to the school. Previously, guest chefs had been from outside the university setting, including Walter Scheib, a chef at the White House from 1994 to 2005 and at The Greenbrier for 11 years before that.

"I have just gotten his cookbook, so I was very excited that he had been a guest chef there as well," Bratton said. "It's exciting to be a part of something like that."