Chef

Job Overview
A chef is a person who professionally prepares meals for people.

Chefs work in a number of places that include restaurants, hotels, hospitals and cruise ships.

What do people do in this occupation?
Below are various titles and job descriptions given to those working in a professional kitchen, with each also being regarded as a type of chef.

These titles often vary in different restaurants and various dining establishments.

• Chef de cuisine (Executive Chef and Head Chef)
  This person is in charge of all issues related to the kitchen. This usually includes menu creation, plating design, general management, administration of kitchen staffs' payroll and ordering of supplies.

Head chef is often used to designate someone with the same duties as an executive chef.

These people however usually have someone in charge of them, often making the larger executive decisions such as direction of menu, final authority in staff management decisions etc.

• Sous-chef(Under-chef of the kitchen)
  The Sous-Chef de Cuisine is the second in command and direct assistant of the Executive Chef.

This person may be responsible for scheduling and substituting when the Executive Chef is off-duty and will also fill in for or assist the Chef de Partie (line cook) when needed.

• Expediter
  The expediter takes the orders from the dining room and relays them to the stations in the kitchen.

This person also often puts the finishing touches on the dish before it goes to the dining room.

• Chef de partie (Station Chef or Line Cook)
  A chef de partie is in charge of a particular area of production.

Line cooks are often divided into a hierarchy of their own, starting with "first cook", then "second cook", etc.

Station-chef titles which are part of the brigade system include:
- Commis
A commis is an apprentice in larger kitchens who works under a chef de partie to learn the station's responsibilities and operation. This may be a chef who has recently completed formal culinary training or is still undergoing training.

• Kitchen assistants
  Kitchen assistants (often known as kitchen porters or kitchen hands) are usually kitchen workers who assist with basic tasks, but have had no formal training in cooking.

They carry out relatively unskilled tasks such as peeling potatoes and washing up.

• A communard is in charge of preparing the meal for the staff during a shift.

This meal is often referred to as the staff or family meal.

• The escuelerie (Dishwasher) is in charge of dishes and keeping the kitchen clean.

What kinds of people are suitable for this career?
An active interest in cooking is the starting point for aspiring chefs.

A meal is made more interesting by the way it is presented on the plate, thus creativity is necessary for a chef to stand out.

A great sense of creativity can help with finding new ways to prepare old dishes or coming up with new and exotic ones.

The kitchen environment can be very stressful therefore one needs a calm temperament and the ability to handle pressure.

The career is very detailed and fairly dynamic so a chef must be willing to study the craft and practice what he/she learns.

A chef is responsible for all the other kitchen staff and is often described as the glue that holds the kitchen together. This means that he/she must have excellent leadership and people skills.

What qualifications are needed?
Culinary education is available from a number of institutions offering qualifications in culinary arts.

Chefs under training often undertake work placements. In some cases this is modified to 'day-release' courses where a chef will work full-time in a kitchen as an apprentice and then attend catering college on days off.

Further to this training, most professional kitchens follow the apprenticeship system through which new cooks start at a lower-level and work their way up.

This usually consists of first-year commis, second-year commis etc.

Ideally, over time, a commis will spend a certain period in each section of the kitchen to learn the basics. Unaided, a commis may work on the vegetable station of a kitchen.