Many years ago when in need of a haircut, I surrendered my locks to students of a beauty school in order to save some bucks. The “classroom” looked and smelled like a salon and the aspiring stylists all wore smartly fitted smocks berthing some serious cutting sheers. After a neck-breaking dip in the sink bowl, which lead to a lop-sided hairdo that had my friends asking if I’d cut it myself, I adamantly decided to never again resign any part of my body to students in training.

Last week I broke that moratorium, submitting my taste buds and stomach to students at the Art Institute of California-San Diego, who largely staff an under-publicized restaurant in the school called The Palette. Compared to my time spent as a guinea pig at beauty school, this experience turned out to be a whole lot prettier.

The institute is modern and impressive, offering expensive, top-notch programs for degrees in both culinary arts and management. A flight of stairs from the lobby leads you to The Palette, which resembles some of those bright, sterile restaurants that you find tucked away inside major art galleries. Here, a wall of windows affords south-facing views of Mission Valley. Décor is minimal. And the kitchen is fully exposed, separated from the dining room by a wall of thick glass.

Armies of students clad in chef whites staff both the kitchen and front of the house. They rotate between the two within their classes every quarter semester. Our waitress, on the verge of earning her bachelor’s degree in culinary management, displayed a refreshing brand of enthusiasm toward the restaurant industry that rewarded us with genuine professionalism rather than phony pleasantries. In other words, you’re in good hands here.

Such passion extended to our plates as well. Currently open for breakfast and lunch (then switching to dinner service on July 7), we began with a dish called “breakfast jardiniere,” named after the upscale Jardiniere restaurant in San Francisco, I’m guessing.

The execution was lovely. It featured a bowl of gently sautéed mushrooms, grilled tomato halves, sunny-yellow scrambled eggs and a paper-lined metal cone filled with potatoes and tofu. The latter were cut into small cubes with exact precision, and then cooked to an airy, crisp finish. With eggs and potatoes, many would reach for the salt shaker. But table sodium is noticeably absent here because it is the students’ job to add it accordingly while cooking, without infringing on the integrity of their dishes – and they did well.

Encroaching on the lunch offerings, my companion ordered a luscious bruschetta served over homemade ciabatta bread with soft, sweet mozzarella and mixed greens dressed in mild vinaigrette. The flavors were clean and pure.

The day’s special was a sensational Hungarian goulash using large chunks of shoulder-cut Angus that cut effortlessly with a fork. The meat was strewn over wide, thin egg noodles made in-house and with a teasing amount of oniony, paprika-spiked sauce clinging to them. I’m still experiencing flashbacks for the dish.

From a few other remaining menu items, we squeezed in penne cheese gratin, which pretty much aligned to many of the gourmet mac-n-cheese recipes in commercial restaurants. Made with Gruyere and Jack, the top layer offered a slight crunch, giving way to the usual heaviness underneath.

Grilled entrecote (New York strip) was pleasing, though it lacked girth compared to other steaks of this cut, thus delivering a vaguer beef flavor. The meat was finished off with herbed butter and served with thin, addicting fries, referred to on the menu as “allumete potatoes.” My companion was particularly fond of the accompanying homemade ketchup infused with bananas, a satiny and novel concoction that reminded me a little bit of Asian plum sauce.

The Palette proved to be a good discovery. Pricing is reasonable. Service is embracing. And the money taken in from outside patrons gets funneled into the institute’s culinary scholarship fund, which will ultimately come back to benefit you down the road with fine food and service in the outside world.