A celebrated chef who worked as a personal cook for President Reagan and studied at one of France’s most prestigious culinary schools has been hired to oversee New York University’s dining halls.

“Reagan was one of the most genuinely nice people I ever met in my life,” the new district chef at New York University, Jeramie Garlick, said of his experience cooking for the president during his 1984 presidential campaign. “He ate everything, but was allergic to tomatoes.”

While New York University is already known among the student body for serving up creative dining options, Mr. Garlick is the most prestigious chef the university has ever hired, the director of dining services, Owen Moore, said.

“We host a lot of dignitaries and political figures, and the board of directors is a who’s who of New York City,” Mr. Moore said, listing one of the reasons the school needs a high-level chef running its kitchens and catering service. Mr. Garlick, 51, said his salary is less than $100,00 a year.

He is a cheerful man who spends most of his days shuffling between New York University’s dining centers clad in a thigh-length white chef’s coat. He grew up in London and Lyon with his American father and French mother, and now lives in Brighton Beach with his Russian wife, who is trained as a pastry chef. Every male in his family for the past 150 years has worked in a kitchen, Mr. Garlick said, including his brother, who has cooked for Britain’s royal family. Mr. Garlick attended the L’Ecole d’Escoffier in Lyon, and has worked as the executive chef at the Orient Express, an upscale London eatery.

The title Certified Master Chef, which Mr. Garlick shares with only 43 other cooks in the world, is awarded in Europe only after four years of studying culinary trends and ethnic cuisines, and passing a six-week exam that tests the ability to cook high-quality food in a variety of styles on a consistent basis.

At New York University, Mr. Garlick’s goal is to serve restaurant-quality, organic food for students.

“Food is personal,” Mr. Moore said. “It’s a challenge but we try and do a bunch of different things to cover everyone,” Mr. Moore said.

Yesterday, Mr. Garlick was serving Turkish-baked chicken, Pan-Asian beef with pepper, toy box squash, and a wax bean salad sweetened with soy butter and ginger vinegar.

“It’s not restaurant-quality, but it’s very good,” a freshman at New York University, Rachel Broderick, said while eating dinner at Hayden Dining Hall. “I usually grab something and leave, because I’m always on the run.”

Cooking for students more interested in wrapping a grilled cheese in a napkin and snacking on the walk to class than in experiencing fine cuisine may seem like a frustrating task for a celebrated chef. Mr. Garlick said he feels excited about his new position.

“There’s no excuse for bad food. Absolutely none,” Mr. Garlick said. “And a lot of students do sit down and enjoy a meal.”

Mr. Garlick will oversee all 13 dining locations scattered across New York University’s campus that together turn out about 100,000 meals and snacks a day. Mr. Garlick is working to create an organic menu for Hayden Dining Hall, where he is cooking only with produce grown using sustainable farming methods.

Mr. Garlick crafts a five-week menu for seven campus dining halls. “Students shouldn’t have the same meal more than twice in any five-week period,” he said.

The chef will also be designing a special menu for “restaurant night” at the Palladium Dining Hall, when students are served by waiters in tuxedos and dine at tables adorned with candles and flower arrangements.

He said he starts his day at 6:30 a.m., when he’s firing up breakfast and distributing menus to his line cooks. He oversees all three meals a day, and usually returns home by 10 p.m. He said he eats most of his meals at the student dining centers. If he had his druthers, however, he said he’d take more meals at Mario Battali’s restaurants and at Jean-Georges.

Mr. Garlick, who was profiled in yesterday’s edition of the Washington Square News, said he likes the university. “Things are spontaneous here,” he said. “Suddenly some students break out singing Mozart, and New York City is one of my three favorite cities in the world.”