Culinary Chef Job Description

The definition of a chef is one who is a cook by profession. However, chefs working with the hospitality sector today, have much more to do than mere cooking. To be more precise, the duty of a chef is to manage the entire kitchen and everything to do with cooking. A chef has to see to it that food is cooked in a way that meets the standards of cleanliness and hygiene. So, the modern chef is required to have more than just an interest in cooking. He should have a formal training in culinary skills behind him, in order to be successful as a chef. In addition to educational qualifications, it is required that the chef is healthy and hygienic.

Culinary Chef Requirements

To be a culinary chef, you need to be at least a high school graduate with some experience of practical training. There are many colleges that offer a degree or diploma in cooking. After obtaining a degree (or diploma), you can get some hands on experience by working as a trainee in restaurant kitchens. Here you can get to observe the master chefs at work and can learn a lot in the process. Since a chef is responsible for deciding the price and quantity of the delicacies served to the customers, your ability to perform some quick calculations will be an added advantage.

Culinary Chef Job Information

The job opportunities for a culinary chef is mostly in places like hotels, cafeterias and restaurants, where people come to have food and the duty of a chef can vary widely depending on the demands of the place where he is working. Small restaurants and fast food chains have cooks who are adept at making food items such as burgers, pizza, sandwiches, hot-dogs, etc. Such cooks are referred to as short order cooks as they specialize in food that gets prepared in a jiffy and can be served quickly.

In restaurants that cater to a variety of cuisines from different parts of the world, there are many cooks, each with an expertise in a particular style of cooking. So, there you'll find separate cooks for Chinese, Continental, Thai, Italian and Japanese food and also cooks specialized in different departments such as pastry, soups, desserts, roasting and grilling, among others. In large kitchens such as these, it becomes necessary to have someone to manage things on a day to day basis and this is where the role of a chef comes into picture. The duty of a chef is to oversee the working in the kitchen and supervise the work of cooks and kitchen helpers.

The duties that a culinary chef has to perform, varies according to his designation in the food service industry. After obtaining a degree in culinary arts, you join a restaurant as a station chef or Chef de Partie. Station chefs or line cooks, as they are otherwise known as, prepare food in the kitchen. During this period as a station chef, one is given the opportunity to observe the second chefs and the executive chef at work and learn a lot in the process. The second chef or Sous Chef as he is known in French, is the person incharge of supervising the line cooks and ensuring that food is ready on time and every order is looked into and worked upon. In other words, the second chef is the one responsible for seeing to it that all the staff in the kitchen, including the cleaners and helpers, are doing their job efficiently. The next in rank is the executive chef who is responsible for the working of the entire kitchen. The highest rank in the food service industry is that of an executive chef.

It is the executive chef who is responsible for ensuring that the food served to the customers looks palatable and at the same time, tastes delicious. Once it's decided what's going to be on the menu card, the job of the executive chef is to decide the quantity of a particular dish to be served per plate and also to set a price for the dish accordingly. The entire responsibility of running the food joint or restaurant efficiently lies with the executive chef and this includes maintaining a stock of necessary materials needed for preparing food and ensuring that the utensils used for cooking are clean and electrical equipments such as microwave ovens, blenders, mixers, hot plates, etc. are functioning properly.

Sometimes, the executive chefs use their specialized training in culinary skills to come up with new recipes that eventually find a permanent place on the restaurant's menu and if loved by many, go on to become the exclusive attraction of the food joint. Do you remember admiring the diverse menu of a restaurant you visited recently? Well, then it is the executive culinary chef who is to be thanked for it! The extent of a restaurant's popularity depends on how good its cooks and chefs are. This is because the tastier and more presentable the food is, the more it will be appreciated by the customers. And more number of happy customers means the popularity of the restaurant will spread by word-of-mouth.

With the recent boom in the hospitality sector, employment opportunities for culinary chefs are many. Even though the salary of a culinary chef may depend on several factors such as the location and the establishment where one is employed, the average annual salary of an executive chef ranges from $30,000 to $50,000.