Inquiring Chef Academy
Cooking Camps in Kansas City
Cook with Us!
Does your child love helping in the kitchen or are they ready to learn more? At Inquiring Chef Academy, kids from Kindergarten to 5th grade gain hands-on cooking experience and build confidence in the kitchen.
No matter their age or prior experience, all of our campers learn the fundamentals of cooking and baking, craft ways to present their creations, play plenty of fun games, and work in small groups to prepare a variety of recipes.
Summer 2024 camps are open for registration! Camps will be held at HJ’s Youth & Community Center and Second Presbyterian Church in Brookside. Check out our calendar below for available dates.
Sign Up Here
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If a camp is sold out, contact us at camp@inquiringchef.com to be added to the waitlist
Thank you to our sponsors!
Meet Jess
All of our camps are taught by Jess Smith alongside a team of staff and counselors. Jess has been cooking professionally for 15 years. She served as the Chief Recipe Developer at Cook Smarts and has been featured in Raddish Kids, Parade, Hallmark, Honest Cooking, Livestrong, Self, Yahoo, NBC, HuffPost, and She Knows.
Jess has a Masters’ Degree in Education Policy and spent the early part of her career working in education. She is a proud mom to Molly and Clara (age 10) and June (age 5) who attend Academie Lafayette.
You can find Jess most days of the week sharing vegetable-forward recipes on Instagram. Her first cookbook, Start with a Vegetable, will be released in the fall of 2024.
Questions?
Contact Jess and the team at camp@inquiringchef.com.
FAQs
Camps are held in Westminster Hall at Second Presbyterian Church (318 E. 55th St. Kansas City, MO 64113).
We are a zero-pressure environment and never pressure any of our campers to taste something they’re not ready to try. If your child is in a picky eating phase, they will still have fun learning new skills, handling and preparing a variety of foods, and making new friends.
All of our snacks and meals are served family-style so that our campers have plenty of choices and can choose what they want to eat.
Each of our camps have a maximum of 26 kids. We have a ratio of 5:1 campers to staff.
At this time we do not offer extended hours. We hope to make them available in the future.
The cost of all of our cooking camps include everything your child will need while they are with us: snacks, lunches, and treats to bring home to share. All they need to bring each day is themselves!
Weekly Camps: Our weekly camps also include a cookbook with all of the recipes your child makes at camp. We want them to be able to recreate their recipes after camp is over.
Please note it in your registration form. If it is a severe allergy please reach out at camp@inquiringchef.com before registering so we can discuss if it is possible for us to offer a safe environment.
We often cook with flour, eggs, and dairy. We do not the ability to provide a gluten-free option at this time. All of our camps are nut-free, but we cannot guarantee that the spaces we use have not been exposed to potential allergens like nuts.
If the cost of camp is prohibitive, contact Jess directly at jess@inquiringchef.com. We have scholarships available and do our best to make it possible for every child to attend.
Apply to be a Camp Counselor!
Camp is run by an enthusiastic team of counselors and staff. All counselors and staff are trained and complete a background check. If you are or know of someone who would be interested in working with Jess this summer, please see here for more information.
