Culinary Careers: A Giant Buffet of Responsibilities

Chef

By Joe LaVilla, The Art Institute of Phoenix
October 29, 2002

Jobs in the culinary field come in all shapes and sizes, opening doors to a lifetime of continuing education and challenge. For those who have been in the business a while, the challenge is what sustains them. For a new graduate of a cooking or culinary school, it can be a giant buffet of career possibilities, with no real direction of where to start or where to go.

This article seeks to focus that direction by taking a look at the culinary career possibilities, showing how graduating students can evaluate their own skills and ambitions to see where they may best fit in the industry.

The Types of Culinary Jobs Available | Skills to Practice | Choosing Your Culinary Career Path | Conclusion

TYPES OF CULINARY JOBS

Restaurants

There are many types of foodservice operations to choose from when determining where to work, but restaurants are the most obvious choice. It is often a restaurant or a chef of a particular restaurant that inspires the decision to become a chef.

But not all restaurants are created equal! There are small, individually run restaurants. These could be a Mom-and-Pop operation to a chef-owned fine dining establishment. There are also much larger operations, including restaurants that may have multiple outlets, or high seating capacity, or are just high volume. Finally, there are corporate restaurants - referring to those that have similar menus, management and methods no matter where they are based.

Hotels/Resorts

The other obvious choice is the hotel and resort industry. Hotels offer a great deal of variety in one location, allowing growth and challenge without changing employers. Hotels and resorts usually have several restaurants on premises as well as banquet facilities and specialized service areas, such as a bakeshop or butcher.

Catering and Institutional

Other foodservice operations fit different needs. Catering companies tend to have few full-time positions, but they are a great place for temporary employment or side jobs to boost your income. Institutional foodservice (retirement homes, corporate lunch rooms, hospitals and schools) are not always on the cutting edge of culinary, but they offer great hours and benefits.

The Personal Chef

The personal chef is becoming a larger component of the foodservice industry. In the past, this job was mainly concerned with being the chef for a person or family. It involved everything from shopping to preparing the meals, and perks often included traveling with the client, or extended periods of downtime when the client was away.

Today, the personal chef industry has developed into a kind of specialized catering company. Chefs often have several clients, and, rather than cook on a daily basis, they prepare a series of meals to last the week. This can be done in a client's home, or at a centralized kitchen where meals are then packaged for delivery. This style of personal service allows the chef to schedule their own time and amount of work - a benefit that is reflected in the increasing number of chefs in this category.

Other Culinary Careers

There are many other areas that you could pursue with a culinary degree. Chefs can be found working for major food companies in research and development, in research for large restaurant chains, or as production chefs for specialty food producers. Chefs are also in demand in hospitals, schools and corporate facilities.

Of course, culinary does not have to mean cooking either. Some chefs take their knowledge of food and become restaurant managers, food and beverage directors of hotels and resorts, sommeliers or even professional wait staff. Some chefs who tire of working in the kitchen, but want to stay connected become food sales representatives. They may represent a specialty grower, or producer, or they may be a rep for a large foodservice purveyor.

Still others combine their culinary education with their personal and professional interests, such as writing or photography, which can lead to careers in food writing for newspapers, magazines or cookbooks. And, of course, there is also food styling, the profession that makes food look its best and/or authentic in front of a camera to produce both still-pictures and video productions that we see of food.

SKILLS TO PRACTICE

At graduation from cooking school, the future is wide open. The decisions that you make from this point on will affect the direction of your career. Often times, after working for a few years in restaurants, it is difficult to move into hotels and vice versa. Banquet chefs find it difficult to move into a restaurant position - the skills needed are different.

There are four basic categories of skills that every chef uses during his or her career: technical, culinary, organizational, and managerial. Each builds upon the other.

Technical

The most basic skill, the one that schools are designed to teach, is the technical. These skills are the basis of every chef's talent - knife skills, cooking methods, timing, mise en place, and (the ultimate technical skill) making cooking on the line graceful, even during the rush.

Culinary

The other skill taught in school is culinary. Most chefs have a good palate to begin, but training for the nuances of flavor and seasoning, new flavor combinations, creative plates and presentations, delving deep in to a cultures cuisine all take training and practice.

Organizational and Managerial

The other two skill sets are what distinguish a cook from a Chef. A Chef is concerned with more than his/her own piece of the kitchen - they have the whole kitchen as a responsibility. With this in mind, organization is key. How to stay organized (now, having more responsibility than just one station), how to have the kitchen run smoothly and efficiently, and how to conduct business (ordering, scheduling, food costing etc.).

Hand in hand with organizational skills are managerial skills. A chef understands how to work with people and get them to work for him/her. These skills are the highest level because they involve sharing knowledge and skill with those working for you. The most often-seen method is training, but ultimately being a mentor to a cook and to develop their career is the highest skill a chef can attain.

CHOOSING YOUR CULINARY CAREER PATH

Graduation is the best opportunity to assess the skills you have and determine what you want or need to improve. Then, the choice of what foodservice venue in which to concentrate your career will be easier: The beginning of a career path should be based on the skills needed to be practiced.

Yes, "practiced." Even a chef who is doing 95 percent managerial work needs to keep the knife skills toned and ready for use. A finely-honed palate needs adjusting and testing to stay tuned. Cooking school has taught the basic skills, and the first few jobs allow for the development of those skills. If your industry experience is minimal, it is advisable to start with a job that will give you the opportunity to practice your basic skills. A line cook job may indeed be the perfect place to start.

So, with all of these choices, where is the best place to start? Well, take the time to evaluate your skills:

Do you need or want to be better technically? If so, this may lead to a job in a high volume restaurant.
Are you ready to develop your palate? If so, that may mean more exotic cuisine or a more fine-dining establishment.
Have you been working for a while and want to move into management? Catering or banquets may teach organizational skills without jumping into the management scene totally.

CONCLUSION

The first few years of a culinary career are an exploratory period. You get paid to keep practicing your skills and to explore your new vocation for what really excites you.

Eventually, there will come a time when you choose one path. It may be in the hotel environment, or independent restaurants, or in catering. It is best if you are conscious of the choice, and not, as an afterthought, find yourself asking a few years down the road, "How did I end up here?"

Part of what can make your choice a conscious one is finding the place you are challenged the most and can grow the most. A "culinary graduate school," as it were.

No, there won't be a certificate at the end. No graduation ceremony.

What you will get is a clear path for you future in the culinary world, and a solid grounding of all the skills you learned in cooking school.

Chef Joe LaVilla began cooking at home at the age of 13. After obtaining a Ph.D. in organic chemistry, Chef LaVilla decided to pursue his passion and enrolled in the The Art Institute of Phoenix.