What does a chef do?
You spend the afternoon getting ready for two hours of chaos, and how well you prepared decides whether those two hours are cooking or panic.
Also called: cook, chef de partie.
A day looks like
- 1You read the bookings and work out what tonight actually needs — not what the menu says, what the tables ordered last Friday.
- 2Prep. Hours of it. Stock on, sauces down, everything portioned into the exact spot your hands will reach for at 8pm.
- 3Service. Six tickets on the rail, four pans going, and you are cooking three different dishes to land at the same second.
- 4The kitchen gets scrubbed to a standard most homes never see, and then you do tomorrow's order.
Hardest part
Timing. Anyone can cook one plate well. Cooking eight plates so they are all ready at the same moment is the actual job, and it cannot be rushed at the end.
Best part
A service where everything lands, nothing burns and the pass is clean by eleven. It feels like winning something.
How you actually become a chef
- At schoolYou can start at sixteen in a real kitchen. School food tech helps; nothing replaces service.
- TrainingA catering course, or a commis chef apprenticeship — most chefs learn on the line.
- How longTwo to four years to run a section. Longer to run a kitchen.
- Your first jobCommis chef — prep, plating and being shouted at by the clock.
Frequently asked questions
- Do you need to go to catering college to be a chef?
- No. Many chefs start as a commis at sixteen and learn entirely in kitchens. A course teaches you technique faster and safely, but the trade is learned during service.
- What is mise en place?
- French for 'everything in its place' — all the preparation done before service starts. It is the single biggest difference between a calm kitchen and a chaotic one.
- Is being a chef a well-paid job?
- It starts low and the hours are long and unsociable — evenings, weekends, holidays. It climbs steeply for people who become good enough to run a kitchen, and it travels anywhere in the world.
More from Hospitality & Tourism
Barista
You make drinks that need to be right and fast at the same time, for a queue that can see exactly how long you are taking.
Hotel Housekeeper
You turn fourteen used rooms back into rooms that look like nobody has ever been in them, in an order that has to be exactly right.
Hotel Duty Manager
You are the most senior person in the building at three in the morning, and everything that nobody else can decide comes to you.
Head Housekeeper
You have a hundred rooms, eleven hours and nine people, and you decide in what order the building gets cleaned.
Catering Manager
You feed six hundred people in forty minutes, on a budget, and you are the person who has to know exactly what is in every dish.
Outdoor Instructor
You take other people's children up a hill or onto water, and the whole job is knowing when to turn round.
Cruise Hotel Officer
You run a hotel that cannot call anybody for help, is full of people who cannot leave, and is moving.
Baker
You turn flour and water into bread overnight, and almost everything you do is judged by hand rather than by a timer.
Pastry Chef
You work to the gram and to the degree, in the coldest corner of the kitchen, on the part of the meal people photograph.
Butcher
You break a carcass down into the cuts people recognise, following the animal's own seams rather than sawing through it.
Kitchen Porter
You keep the whole kitchen supplied with clean equipment — and if you stop, service stops about eleven minutes later.
Sommelier
You read a table, find the bottle that suits what they are eating and what they want to spend, and serve it in an order that has a reason behind every step.
Restaurant Manager
You run a room of strangers eating, a kitchen under pressure and a team who are all tired, and you keep all three of them working together.
Concierge
You know the city well enough to solve a stranger's problem in ten minutes, and you know which promises you can actually keep.
Bartender
You serve drinks fast and accurately to people who are gradually getting less reasonable, and you are legally responsible for when to stop.
Front of House Supervisor
You run a section during service — who goes where, in what order, and which table gets the next thing that comes out of the kitchen.
Events Coordinator
You run a day that happens once, cannot be rehearsed and cannot be repeated, for people who will remember it for the rest of their lives.
Tour Guide
You take a group of strangers somewhere, keep all of them safe and interested at the same time, and tell them the truth about it.