Question
Merrell virgen
I’ve always wanted to work in a restaurant kitchen, cooked/prepped for years as an amateur chef at home. What’s the best way to enter into this type of arrangement?
Answer
You know, I, I'm a big proponent of working in restaurants to be able to increase your skills. It's, um, you know, how most chefs, um, get a lot of their skills. Um, I think the best way is to find a restaurant that you enjoy the food and that you like a certain presentation or style from, and then, um, ask to talk with the chef and just kind of pick their brain a little bit about, uh, what it would be like to be able to work, um, for them. Um, you know, if you've been an amateur chef or, uh, at home, you probably have some of the skills that they already need for that as well too. Um, so, you know, working in a kitchen, it's fantastic. Uh, I, I love it because you can gain a lot of experience with each kitchen that you work in and, um, as long as you're upfront and honest with the staff of the kitchen, um, and the chef, um, or the ownership or whoever, uh, to say, look, I'm here to be able to help you and this is going to be a symbiotic relationship, um, and be upfront with that right away. Um, you know, it should be a pretty advantageous, uh, relationship to be able to make that work for all parties involved. So, um, the biggest thing is just to be honest about what you're wanting to do, that you're there to learn and you're also there to be able to help them right on the busiest times. Um, now as looking at that as a learning experience, uh, don't expect to get paid a ton of money for doing that, right? If you wanna work in a kitchen as a full-time and you're looking to do it for years, great. Take that job and stick with that as well. But if you're just starting out, I would definitely recommend trying. Uh, what in the industry is called staging, which is basically you're working basically for free at a kitchen for a couple months and you go to a different place for a couple months, you can go to a different place. And when I mean a couple months, I'm not saying two, a lot of times it's three to six months, um, working in a place and working like a dog to be able to make sure that they know, uh, that you are there to really show up and be present. Um, you'd have to show up on time every single time. Usually, you know, first one in last one out kind of a deal. Um, and that is when you can open up the magic and the chefs will open up their, you know, minds and start to teach you things at the same time. Um, the more helpful you are in the kitchen, the more they will teach you, um, you know, typically, um, to be able to make the restaurant experience better and you'll get better skills out at the same time.
