Last Thursday, Jenevieve Baclaan had one of those teachable moments that will probably stay with her forever.

The 18-year-old was among a group of students preparing for a special dinner at Leeward Community College's Pearl Restaurant, where culinary students learn by doing. The school, including the bakeshop, fundamentals lab, contemporary cuisine kitchen and restaurants, has completed an $8 million renovation project, and they're celebrating with a grand reopening event featuring the cuisine of two of Hawai'i's most beloved chef-elders, Martin Wyss and Hans Weiler.

Wyss, a 51-year veteran of the kitchen, whose Swiss Inn restaurant was one of Honolulu's most popular, had spent some time explaining to Baclaan's team how to identify the skin side of a fish fillet (it's darker and generally less attractive) and why it was important to place the fillet in the saucepan skin side up (so that after you've turned it over and slipped it out of the pan, the best-looking side is facing the diner).

As Baclaan embarked on her first solo attempt at preparing Wyss' recipe for onaga with caper sauce, the chef peered over her shoulder.

"You do it exactly wrong," said Wyss, with a twinkle of humor in his eye and his Swiss accent as pronounced as ever.

She had identified the skin side correctly but got confused and put the fish in the pan skin side down. Later, Baclaan, 18, a first-year student with just 10 weeks of instruction behind her (plus some culinary arts training at Waipahu High School), said she didn't mind his gentle scolding: "It means a lot to us to have people like him teach here. He's been through it all. It's an eye-opening experience to watch him."

Not only have all the training areas been expanded and improved, but The Pearl now has the look and feel of a high-end restaurant with a view of Pearl Harbor, muted aqua tones, polished wood furnishings and tasteful decorative elements. Professor Tommylynn Benavente, who directs the service training program, said LCC's annual "Taste of the Stars" fundraiser paid for many of the extras that couldn't come out of state funds. If you didn't have to cross the campus to get to the second-floor restaurant, you'd think you were in a Waikiki restaurant.

Wyss and Weiler will not be cooking for the event; they'll be taking their ease in the front of the house for once. So Thursday's rehearsal was the students' opportunity to walk through the recipes with the two chefs.

Great cooking is all in the details, so the students were learning small skills that add up to a big difference: how to tell if fish is done just by poking it gently with a finger, how to rescue a "broken" butter sauce, why you never let the water boil when you're tempering chocolate for a mousse.

They were also privileged to eavesdrop as Wyss recalled how he handled the 200 covers for his Swiss Inn Sunday brunch with nothing but a dishwasher at his back. He used to have a cook work the Sunday shift with him, he said, but one day the guy called in sick late on a Saturday night. Wyss did the service alone that week and every week thereafter for the next eight years, until he closed the restaurant.

Chef-instructor Travis Kono, cafeteria operations manager, worked with Wyss for a period and clearly still is in awe of his former boss. "He's not afraid to work," Kono said. Asked how many customers a night they'd serve at dinner, Kono said he didn't know: "All I know is we just kept on going, kept on going, kept on going. I was too busy to count."

More used to cooking than talking, Wyss at first went about his business, his gnarled, knowledgeable hands moving among the pots without need of thought or hesitation. But after running through each of his dishes at least once, he stepped back and began to let the students do the work, talking quietly to them, offering tips and occasional praise.

Chef-instructor Linda Yamada directed the students to make drawings of the finished plates, and take note of garnishes and presentation, so they could replicate the plates exactly. Daniel Nakasone, who is helping with the reopening project, reminded the students — most of whom had never been to Swiss Inn in Niu Valley — that their audience would include Wyss' former regulars.

Downstairs in the cool Bakeshop Lab, Weiler and pastry chef-instructor Michael Scully had already taken their team through the dessert drill. They were ready for a hands-off second run through, preparing chocolate mousse and assembling an elaborate dessert that involved a spider web of sauces in contrasting colors, a chocolate mold filled with fresh mousse and garnish that had to be placed just so.

First-year student Jeff Hall, 19, was a bit star-struck to be working with Weiler: "I've always heard about him, and here he is. He really knows his stuff."

Scully said the school's goal is to make the chef students' educational experience as realistic as possible. The students undergo a daily lab evaluation that extends to such real-world issues as professional appearance, organization and sanitation.

Scully's message: A chef should work as though anyone might walk through the bakeshop door any minute — an inspector, a customer, the president of the university — "and they would still work in the same way because they're doing it the right away every day."

The Pearl is open 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays through Dec. 1. Reservations: 455-0475 or 455-0298.

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.