Alum goes from the Hill to the grill

So, where can a Tufts degree take you? For graduate Philip Wang (LA '95), his degree took him straight to the kitchen.

Wang has worked in top restaurants in cities all over the country with world-famous chefs and has earned praise from the press. Currently, Wang is the executive chef of Truc in Boston, serving up French cuisine that he describes as "more forward-thinking, but without being weird," and is famous for his specialty - frog's legs. The dish was named the best appetizer in Boston by Food and Wine Magazine.

But Wang was not always a culinary expert. He hardly cooked, outside of barbeques at his Packard Ave. apartment, while at Tufts; his plate was full finishing an anthropology major, working as a volunteer for TEMS, a member of LCS, and as a brother of Theta Delta Chi.

A native of Indiana, Wang came to Tufts intending to go into medicine, but his family's love of food steered him into a tastier direction.

"All the family did revolved around food... So, why not try cooking?" Wang said. "It planted a seed in my head."

To explore this new career interest, he attended the Connecticut Culinary Institute in Farmington, CT second semester of his junior year.

"[I] was kind of bored of Tufts for a little bit," Wang said. "It was just a 'see what's out there' kinda thing; [I] wanted to get away from the classroom for a second."

Six days a week, Wang commuted from from Medford to Farmington in order to attend classes at both schools.

Although Wang didn't use his newly-acquired culinary skills after his junior year experience, Wang pursued a career in cooking, in part because he "didn't want to be an anthropologist or go to med school." After graduation, Wang attended the Culinary Institute of America, and soon afterward headed to San Francisco to work under the head chef at the restaurant Rubicon. He helped open new restaurants and lived in both Chicago and New York City before returning to Boston, earning important cooking experience along the way.

In Manhattan, Wang worked at the high-profile Daniel restaurant under owner and acclaimed French chef Daniel Boulud. At Daniel, Wang really sunk his teeth into the competitive restaurant business, and while he was there the restaurant received four-star recognition from The New York Times.

"Daniel was fantastic and it's fun... a lot of pressure, but it's exciting, you really get into what you do," Wang said. "It's fun to watch the contemporary masters work."

So, throughout his cooking career, where has Wang's Tufts degree in anthropology benefited him? According to Wang, his degree from Tufts has helped in his career, although the world's greatest chefs frequently range in educational background.

"The whole culinary field is a broad spectrum of society. Cooking draws from all over the board... people who didn't finish high school to others with a PhD." He adds that clientele at some of the "super high-end" places that he has worked are impressed when they discover he is a Tufts graduate. "It gives you a bit of respect," he said.

His anthropology background has given Wang insight into his clients. "My anthro degree has given me the means to dissect what our diners want," he said. "The different patterns in the city, different diners in the city... More of just like an insight to kinda figuring out which city, what people want, and what you want to give them."