Culinary Careers: How to Become a Chef

Where do Chefs Work?

Everyone’s familiar with the image of the restaurateur and chef-owner in his spotless white coat, but fine dining is only one setting for chefs and cooks. Anywhere that serves food, from school cafeterias and military bases to hospitals and hotels, needs a chef to create and prepare menus. Chain restaurants use chefs to develop new menu items. Even the frozen and packaged foods you buy in your local supermarket probably had a team of chefs behind them.

The skills you need vary from kitchen to kitchen. To work as a hospital cafeteria head chef, for example, you must be able to serve nutritious meals to people with specialized dietary restrictions. A corporate kitchen that develops frozen meals for international distribution takes years of education in food science.

Kitchen Roles

The head chef, also called the chef de cuisine or executive chef, is at the top of the heap. Chef means “chief,” and everyone else in the kitchen reports to the head chef. Setting the menu, coordinating the staff, pricing dishes and maintaining inventory are all part of the chef’s job. It’s demanding, but it’s one of the most rewarding careers in many ways. A chef has total creative control and earns the largest income in the kitchen, typically starting at about $40,000 annually, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The sous chef is just below the head chef and has a great deal of influence over the kitchen. More than an assistant or apprentice, the sous chef usually has the run of the kitchen when the head chef is off work. Restaurants often have two or three sous chefs to cover the day’s shifts. A starting sous chef generally earns about $25,000 to $30,000 annually.

Line cooks, or chefs de partie, cook dishes to order under the direction of the head chef or sous chef. They have a fast-paced, hectic job and typically earn an hourly wage of $12 to $20, depending on experience.

Production cooks do the chopping, slicing and filleting that makes life easy for the cooks on the line, but they also make all the spice blends, marinades and preserved foods that make a fine dining restaurant special. Because they often work during the day, they oversee deliveries and may maintain inventory too. Pay varies, but a new production cook can expect between $14 and $16 an hour.

How to Become a Chef

Culinary school, apprenticeship and promotion from within are the three usual paths to the kitchen, and each way has its benefits. With culinary school, students get a thorough grounding in the basics of cooking and kitchen management. Prestigious cooking schools can give aspiring chefs a leg up, but the real proof of a cook’s quality is on the dish, not the diploma.

Some chefs skip culinary school in favor of hands-on experience. They get an apprenticeship peeling potatoes and chopping onions as teens and develop a passion for making great food that leads them to take on bigger roles, eventually cooking their way to the top of their profession. Even some celebrity chefs got their start in a humble chain restaurant kitchen or family diner.

Restaurant kitchens operate more on merit than on credentials. Talented dishwashers or line cooks can rise as high as culinary school graduates if they have a good palate and a strong work ethic. This road to being a chef is long but scenic; you’ll spend years earning the right to put your name on a restaurant, but you’ll learn a tremendous amount along the way.