Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / What Makes a Chef? Ep. 24

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What Makes a Chef? Ep. 24 · Chef's PSA Podcast

0:00
Hello chefs. You're listening to chefs, PSA
0:02
podcast. I'm your host Andre natera.
0:04
On today's episode, we're going to talk about what makes a chef.
0:20
So first, let's start with an update.
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What have I been up to? I've had a busy week per usual.
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I'm always hustling, but the culinary leadership
0:29
fundamentals, video courses done.
0:32
It's wrapped up its edited. It's ready to go.
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The only problem I have with it is I need to find the right
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platform where it's easy to download because it is quite a
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large file. So when people want to watch the
0:41
video it's about I think it wrapped up being about an hour
0:44
and 20 minutes or so. But what I cover on that is you
0:48
know a lot of the same Same things that are in the book.
0:50
So food cost management cost mitigation building, a culture
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dealing with difficult situations, social media
0:56
marketing, Etc, anyway, that'll be available.
0:59
As soon as I figure out what the right platform is to host it and
1:04
I'm still kind of working through some thoughts on that.
1:05
I'm not 100% sure. The other thing is the culinary
1:08
leadership. Fundamentals, audiobook is
1:10
pretty much wrapped up doing some final edits.
1:14
I'm hoping that that will be out.
1:16
I feel like I've been talking about this you know, for quite
1:19
some time but Open, that'll be up in a relatively short period
1:22
of time. But after that, I've been
1:25
thinking about writing another book and I know I just wrote
1:28
three books this year and maybe I need to take a break but, you
1:31
know, my mind moves rapidly. And if I had an idea for another
1:35
book, it would be things that I learned from my chef so lessons.
1:40
When I was a cook things that my chef taught me and just kind of
1:43
make a compendium of those thoughts and ideas and put them
1:48
into a book format, short short book, but more of a, more of a
1:52
story format. So, I don't know, I don't know
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if I'll do that. I'm not announcing that.
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I'm a start doing that because if I announced it then I have to
1:57
do it. I'm giving myself the option to
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not do it. But if that's a book that you
2:01
guys would like to read, let me know and maybe they'll give me
2:05
the motivation to write it. If you all feel that, that's
2:07
something that you all would like to read anyway.
2:11
One of the thing I forgot to mention is on last week's
2:14
episode. I had mentioned that starting
2:17
this week. I would also do video on YouTube
2:21
and Spotify, so you could watch this.
2:24
Well, that clearly didn't happen.
2:26
I had a, I still have a little bit of a learning curve, if I'm,
2:30
if I'm being honest, I haven't fully figured it out and I want
2:33
to do a back back up, I'm sorry. I want to do a black background
2:38
behind me. So you do everyone gets tired of
2:40
seeing my Shelf anyway. So that's not ready yet.
2:44
I lied I made a mistake. I spoke too soon.
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I thought it was ready to start doing video and audio, turns out
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I'm not as tech savvy as I thought so.
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Still a work in progress. Anyway, subject at hand this
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week is what makes a chef. This is a very interesting
3:01
conversation for me because a lot of people Really throw the
3:07
term Chef around, pretty Loosely, and sometimes I throw
3:10
it around Loosely and I want to get into why throw it around
3:13
Loosely, but really, what makes a chef?
3:15
I'm going to start out with a story when I was in culinary
3:17
school. I remember, they were going
3:20
through lecture and I signed up for culinary school.
3:22
I honestly, I didn't even know what the word culinary meant.
3:25
I thought I was going to Chef school and some some guy.
3:28
Some annoying guy. Said, no, you're going to
3:30
culinary school. I said what's calling her and he
3:32
started laughing at me so you don't know what culinary is bro
3:34
your stupid anyway You know, what happened to that guy?
3:38
He was an idiot. Not me.
3:40
I was probably an idiot as well. I honestly didn't know what that
3:42
word is a big word for me. I was only like 16.
3:45
Anyway, long story short. I'm in culinary school and the
3:48
chef is up and he's giving lecture.
3:50
And he's talking about when we graduate upon graduation, we can
3:54
become certified cooks. And I remember I raised my hand
3:59
and I said Don't you made will be shops and he started laughing
4:04
and he said, absolutely not. Maybe in 10 years you'll be a
4:07
chef, but when you graduate, you're just going to be a cook
4:10
and you got to work your way up. Starting from the bottom.
4:12
Now, when I heard that, I was devastated because I thought
4:16
that graduating from culinary school made one a chef, I didn't
4:20
realize that that's not the case.
4:22
You don't graduate from culinary school in most cases and go
4:25
directly into becoming a chef But I didn't know that I was
4:29
just a kid. So being the young kid that I
4:32
was I was I was super bummed out.
4:34
Anyway, fast forward a couple of years later.
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I'm working in this restaurant and one of my buddies leaves and
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he goes to work at this golf club and he tells me, hey, there
4:44
looking for a head chef and I think you'd be perfect.
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So I was like really, you know, and at this point in time, I may
4:50
be 18 years old. So I went to culinary school
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when I was 17. So, I'm probably about 18 years
4:54
old at this time, and I remember, I went and I
4:56
interviewed for the job of executive chef, I'm only 18.
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And they For to be the job and I'm like, holy shit.
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I'm going to be the executive chef and I'm only 18.
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I'm such a badass and I remember going to speak to my chef that I
5:10
worked for at the time and thinking, like, we're going to
5:14
be peers. We're equals because you're an
5:16
executive chef. I'm going to be an executive
5:18
chef, but the fact of the matter was that there was only one
5:20
other person in the kitchen. It would have been just me, and
5:23
my friend, and I would have been his boss.
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So, that would have made me the executive chef and I went, and I
5:27
spoke to my chef about it, and he said, do you think you're
5:31
ready? Ready for a position like that
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and I said, yeah, I'll be a chef and he's like, but you're not
5:36
really a chef, you don't have a lot of experience you have less
5:38
than one year out of culinary school.
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And I thought to myself. Yeah, but I'll buy culinary
5:44
school taught me, everything that I need to know.
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I'm ready, you know, I did, I didn't know better at the time
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and he says, how much are they going to pay you?
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Now, keep in mind, this is think 1995, 96.
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I said you're there can pay me $7 an hour to be the executive
5:57
chef and he said, okay. Well maybe just wait a little
6:01
bit and I'll send you up to my friends restaurant.
6:04
You can learn some more, maybe some different things there.
6:06
Anyway, I didn't end up taking the job and in retrospect.
6:10
Thank God, I had no business calling.
6:11
Myself a chef when I was 18 years old but the reality is is
6:15
that would have made me a chef technically.
6:18
Technically on paper, I would have been a chef.
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I would have been 18 years old. I would have had one other
6:23
employee and I would have been his boss and that would have
6:26
made me the chef. So when you think about what
6:29
really is a chef, it's the chief.
6:31
Right? That's that's kind of where the
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word comes from. Its the head person, in the
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kitchen, the head person in the kitchen, is the chef usually.
6:38
Okay, so let's let's, let's take this more as a, as an extreme
6:41
example. Ample, there's one chef and
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everyone else's not the chef. Now I know there's layers execs.
6:45
Ooh, sous-chef Etc. But let's just use this as an
6:48
example. The chef is the chef everyone
6:50
else's not the chef and a lot of kitchens do run that way.
6:54
We're especially in the old days you only called the chef the
6:59
chef. So you'd say, you know, Chef
7:00
whatever, and if you dared address another Chef in the same
7:05
room, that was, maybe the sous chef and call them Chef in front
7:08
of the head. Chef boy, I've seen some chefs.
7:11
Their mind saying I'm the chef dammit, don't call them the
7:15
chef. I am the chef you know, big egos
7:19
in those days. So anyway I would not have been
7:23
a chef of that was the case but in general let's just use a
7:26
hypothetical situation. I've been an executive chef, I
7:30
think nine times in my career. So restaurants hotels country
7:33
clubs Etc. And in those nine times, let's
7:37
say, I did, you know, right now I'm not a chef I can't call
7:40
myself Chef, I don't run a brigade.
7:41
Wade, I've been a chef but right now I would say I'm not a chef
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but maybe I'm your all's Chef, I'm a chef podcaster but let's
7:49
say I got a job and in the next job that I got, I'm the fry
7:53
cook. I couldn't walk into that job
7:55
right now and say call me Chef because everyone else would look
8:00
at me and be like you're not the chef, you're a fry cook.
8:03
So it doesn't really matter what I have done previously in my
8:06
career, if I start a job tomorrow and in that job, I am a
8:10
fry cook. Then I can't sit here and say I
8:13
am a chef, the chef is the title.
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So the chef is the title of the person who runs the kitchen.
8:20
The job is cooking or running to kitchen, right?
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I think that's an interesting way to view it because a lot of
8:27
people just, you know, throughout the term Chef
8:28
arbitrarily and I could say right now I have a hard time
8:33
calling myself a chef. A lot of times I say I'm a
8:35
former Chef because I'm not running a kitchen in to me is
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Chef is someone that's running the kitchen.
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Now with that being said, in a A lot of kitchens the term Chef is
8:45
used also as a sign of professionalism and respect
8:48
amongst everyone on the team. So if you go work in a
8:53
restaurant and let's just say it's a high-end restaurant and
8:56
everyone calls back and it's yes, chef.
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Well, you'll start to notice that if someone else is calling
9:03
out orders, they might not be a chef and people will say yes,
9:06
chef. So maybe it's an expeditor who
9:09
has zero culinary experience and maybe there are front of the
9:11
house person and they just threw on whites for the day and
9:14
they're calling out a ticket. You'll hear people say yes, chef
9:17
now. Does that make them a chef?
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I don't know. They're running service.
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So you could argue that they are the chef.
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A lot of times people will call themselves chefs and call.
9:28
Our people shops like I said, as a sign of respect.
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So let's just say your the fry cook going back to my fry cook
9:35
example, they'll be times what they say.
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You know, they'll walk up to the fry cook and they'll say Chef
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even though I'm not, the chef will say, Chef this that and the
9:43
other this is Chef so-and-so and everyone is Chef and kitchens
9:48
like that. They do that.
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Just out of a term of endearment, a term of respect.
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They want to bring some professionalism into what they
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do. The chef title gets thrown
9:56
around as chef de partie Demi's. Chef chef Cole, me executive
10:01
sous, chef etc, etc. And the reason people do that
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is, it shows respect for the tradition and the heritage of
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what we're doing. So again, what is a chef?
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Hmm. So it does get a little bit
10:13
muddy. I think the rule of thumb would
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be the proper thing is, whatever, is the proper thing in
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the kitchen, where you work. So if you work in a place where
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there's only one Chef, then that's it.
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If you work in a place where there's a sous chef and an
10:31
executive sous-chef, maybe that's the rule or if you work
10:34
in a place where everyone is called, Chef, maybe that's the
10:36
rule there. But it still doesn't answer the
10:40
question of what is a chef? And I'm going to tell you
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another story. So I told you earlier.
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How was 18 and I was going to be a chef now was I ready for that?
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Probably not, but I could have done it fast forward, a few
10:54
years. I take my first big executive
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chef job in California at a resort that had about.
11:00
I think about five restaurants big, beautiful 4-star Resort in
11:03
California and I was definitely punching above my weight.
11:06
I was not ready to be the chef in this in this particular
11:09
place, but I got the job. I was a very good cook at the
11:11
time and I was pushing on the creativity side on things that
11:15
people hadn't really seen at that.
11:16
Point in time. So I knew how to cook but I
11:19
didn't really know how to Chef and so here I was in this place
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and I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.
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I kept making mistake after mistake after mistake not in
11:28
cooking, but just in running the operation leadership decisions
11:30
and things like that. So in retrospect When are you
11:34
ready to become a chef? Well, I definitely wasn't ready
11:38
for that job, but I was definitely ready for one.
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So when people ask me because I get asked this question often,
11:45
how do you know when you're ready to become a chef?
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Well, number one, you're probably ready and you're
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probably not ready at the same time, so you're probably ready
11:54
to be the chef at some places and you're probably nowhere
11:56
close to being ready at other places.
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You could go into a place right now realistically, you could
12:01
graduate culinary school and Into an easy place where there's
12:04
one or two people and you could be the chef, but I doubt that
12:07
you're going to be able to go to a place that's extremely
12:09
difficult, where you have 30 or 40 cooks and be able to be the
12:12
chef there and I would caution you to take a chef job before
12:16
you're ready. Because it's very hard to go
12:18
backwards in your career. Once you've taken the chef job,
12:21
you're not going to want to go back to being a sous chef or
12:23
cook one of the chef's PSAs that I put up is it's better to take
12:28
your time and be a good sous-chef later versus
12:31
impatiently becoming a bad. Sous chef today.
12:35
And I think when we talk about what really makes a chef, when
12:39
we talk about good chefs because again, we throw the term around
12:43
arbitrarily, everyone's a chef, this is these days, they're on
12:46
Tick-Tock there, chef but what makes a good Chef a chef is
12:49
someone that has a high level of Competency in most skill sets in
12:54
the kitchen that includes vegetable work.
12:56
Knife work. Butchering and the basic cooking
13:00
method, sought a braised Etc. So someone that's very In, you
13:05
know, the culinary, let's call it culinary Acumen.
13:08
They have a good understanding of how to cook, but they also
13:13
have a good understanding of how to lead, how schedules work, how
13:16
to manage food, cause how to do inventory Etc.
13:19
So there is a managerial aspect of being a chef, how to run
13:23
service, how to run the pass, how to organize themselves, how
13:26
to hire people, how to lead people, these are these are
13:29
things that you learn along the way.
13:30
And I think that knowing all these I will make you a better
13:34
Chef. So, when are you ready?
13:37
I don't know because an argument could be made that you'll learn
13:41
about the job when you're in the job.
13:43
And that's how you get better. But then the argument could also
13:46
be made, that they're not going to give you the job until you're
13:48
ready for the job until you have experience.
13:51
Sometimes in restaurants, shit happens.
13:55
And a lot of times, you know, a lot of times an independent
13:58
restaurants chefs gets get fired or they don't come in or
14:01
whatever. And you know, the places, you
14:04
know, in a chaotic mess and you know, the owner will look at
14:08
someone and say, hey, you're the sous chef, guess what?
14:09
Now you're the executive chef, you're like, oh shit.
14:11
Okay, what do I do? And we'll figure it out and
14:15
that's not uncommon. So sometimes you get your first
14:18
at-bat when that happens. That's how that's how you get
14:20
your. First, chef job that makes you a
14:22
chef as you just kind of get thrown into the fire and you
14:24
figure that you've kind of figure it out other times.
14:29
Maybe in this was my case, this is how I got my first chef job,
14:32
my mentor, my executive chef, he got promoted and while he was
14:37
moving up he decided to pull me up to.
14:40
So he moved into the next position that was the boss of
14:42
the chef and he put me in the position as the head chef.
14:45
So sometimes that happens, the persons in the building and they
14:48
bring you up other times you and of punch below your weight.
14:52
So what I mean by that is maybe you're the number two in a
14:56
really high-end restaurant but it's going to be very difficult
14:59
to go. Be the number one in a very
15:01
similar establishment. So you go be the number one in
15:04
something that's just below that level to kind of get your sea
15:09
legs about you. That's also very common But
15:12
here's what I could tell you is that a certain point, you have
15:16
to make the decision that it's time to be a chef, you can't
15:18
just sit around forever and say I'll be I don't know what I'm
15:21
going to be ready. I don't know what I'm going to
15:22
be ready like at a certain point.
15:24
You look no one's ever ready just just you got to go for it.
15:28
You got to make the decision and say it's time now and I got to
15:31
go for it. Now, if you failed, maybe you're
15:33
going to find out that you definitely weren't even close to
15:35
being ready, and it's time to go back a few Paces, or, and you
15:39
may find out. Hey, I was more ready than I
15:40
thought. And this was actually, You know,
15:42
I'm pretty good at it. Some people transition very well
15:46
into the head, chef role and other people struggle a little
15:48
bit now. But I can tell you in my
15:50
experience and I do touch on this, in the culinary leadership
15:52
fundamentals book is that there's obviously different
15:56
levels of chefs and there's obviously different types of
15:58
chefs. So you know, a chef like Joan
16:02
Roca from Celler de can Roca. So I did a dinner with him, you
16:05
know, I want to say a couple of years back and when he came into
16:08
the kitchen, even though is my kitchen, he's the chef.
16:11
Yes, chef Jeff Wright said his cutting board up, I'm going to
16:15
be his go for whatever. So he's the chef even though
16:18
it's my restaurant. He is Chef.
16:20
I respect the fact that he is my senior and I'm going to treat
16:24
him as the chef. There's other times when I would
16:27
walk into people's kitchens and maybe these people were people
16:30
that had worked for me in the past and when I would walk into
16:33
their kitchen, they would call me Chef.
16:35
So all of a sudden they are like, passing passing the
16:39
respect of them and their team on to me.
16:41
So, Like I said, there's different levels of chefs.
16:44
And, you know, sometimes when they come in your kitchen, it's
16:47
yes. Chef set up your cutting board.
16:48
Here's here's your towels. Nice and folded, Chef, let me
16:51
know if you need anything. So keep that in mind.
16:54
There's different levels of chefs.
16:57
But additionally, there's also a big difference in the type of
17:01
environment you're going to be a chef.
17:03
So, let's say you're in a hotel and there's levels and hotels,
17:06
there's a 100-room hotel, there's a thousand room Hotel.
17:09
There's a luxury hotel on the beach.
17:11
They all All require different skill sets and knowledge.
17:13
As a chef, there is the diner down the street where you're
17:17
going to be the chef. And there's also the
17:18
three-michelin-star place where you going to be a chef, and they
17:22
all are going to require a different level of skill, set,
17:24
and culinary knowledge, and Leadership, and, and business
17:26
Acumen etcetera. So developing yourself as a chef
17:32
in all facets is never a bad thing, right?
17:34
Become a really good cook first, and I say that with a little bit
17:39
of caution as as you, Up. Sometimes you're really going to
17:44
miss the kitchen because a lot of times, you don't have as much
17:47
time to spend in the kitchen due, to all the other things
17:50
that are going on, in the restaurant, you're putting out
17:51
fires, you're dealing with issues, you're ordering
17:54
etcetera, right? Schedules.
17:55
All the other things take up your time and you're gonna be
17:57
like, damn. I really miss cooking, and rust
17:59
is a real thing, right? The the board time you take
18:02
outside of the kitchen, the harder it's going to be to get
18:04
back in the kitchen. I'll tell you all the story.
18:06
Now, I haven't been a professional chef and almost a
18:09
year now, and I've made. Gnocchi my entire career right
18:13
ever. Since I was like 18, I can I
18:15
know how to make gnocchi. And the other day I was making
18:18
gnocchi from for my house and I couldn't remember how to make it
18:22
now. Hold on.
18:23
I should probably clarify that statement.
18:25
I knew how to make it, but as I was, I had to like stop and
18:28
think like, okay, what's next, how do I do this?
18:30
Okay. Yeah, that's right.
18:31
And then I was always rolling it like it's automatic memory but I
18:34
had to pause and think it was no longer just automatic and that's
18:39
because I'm not in a kitchen every day seeing food and You
18:42
start to get a little bit Rusty, I had to brunoise some, some
18:46
things the other day because I was making a pie for the pie
18:49
hole project. It was a donated pie.
18:50
So inside my pie, I had brunoise vegetables.
18:53
Mirepoix so celery, root onions. Carrots and everything was, you
18:58
know, a strict brunoise how I expected by Cooks to do it.
19:01
Remember I was doing it. I was like, holy shit.
19:05
I can't believe I used to make my Cooks.
19:06
Do this just takes a long-ass time.
19:08
Sorry. If you're all are listening to
19:09
this, I'm sorry. I made you do that.
19:11
It took me a long time. Time to brunoise everything.
19:13
Perfect. And I was like, this is a, I'm
19:16
Rusty. I couldn't get this done as
19:17
quick as I could. You know, my team could probably
19:19
do it in half the time that it took me because I was definitely
19:22
out of practice. But long story, short is, as you
19:26
move up into your Chef rolls your skills, do get rusty so
19:29
it's important to learn as much as you can spend as much time as
19:32
you can and those positions because the longer you take in
19:36
those positions, the better you'll be when you're in the
19:38
next position. And one of the things that's
19:40
very important when you're a chef.
19:42
Is people are going to ask you how to do something and you need
19:44
to be able to show them right. Because if you can't show them
19:48
and it's your kitchen, it becomes a little bit of a
19:51
problem, right? People want to respect the chef,
19:53
they admire the chef and they want to know that, okay?
19:55
You're, you're competent in the things that you're asking us to
19:58
do. So, anyway, food for thought,
20:02
I'm not even sure if I answered the question.
20:04
What is a chef? Well, there's some ambiguity
20:07
there. I would close it by saying the
20:10
chef is the person that is in Charge of the kitchen to me.
20:13
That's what the chef is. However, what is it in your
20:16
kitchen? Because obviously, every single
20:19
kitchen is different. And everyone has a different
20:21
opinion on this. If you ask me the chef or under
20:24
stripes, and work your way to the top and and earned it.
20:27
The title is bestowed upon you. It's not just frivolously given.
20:30
So at some point you have to earn your stripes if you get
20:35
there and it's a something for nothing, meaning you got there
20:37
and you didn't turn the position.
20:40
You have to earn it at some point, if you, if you don't
20:43
learn it, now you're gonna have to earn it later, right?
20:45
You'll get discovered and found out that you're incapable of
20:48
doing the job. So make sure that you're doing
20:51
everything you can to better yourself better your team and
20:56
constantly be pushing forward to become a better Chef anyway,
20:59
that basically wraps it up for this week's chefs PSA, if you
21:03
want to support the show, please follow us on all social
21:07
platforms. So Instagram tick talked.
21:10
No one's on Twitter, right? Chef Twitter is the most boring
21:12
place. So we need some chefs on
21:14
Twitter, Youtube, if you haven't left the five star review, make
21:19
sure you do. So, if you're going to leave
21:21
anything other than a five star review, shame on you go put that
21:24
on someone else's podcast. This is a five-star podcast.
21:27
Anyway, thank you all see you next week, hit the porno music.