How Do You Become An Executive Chef?
As an executive chef, you will be in control. Not only will you plan and develop the menu, you will hire assistant chefs and cooks and you will be responsible for health safety in the kitchen, cost control, recipe adherence and the training of the staff. If that sounds like the job of your dreams, find out how to become an executive chef. Step 1 Obtain your certification in safe food handling. One of the most important jobs of an executive chef is to ensure the safety of the food served. Restaurant management wants to know that you can provide a high level of food safety. Just one case of a customer becoming ill from the food can cost the restaurant thousands of dollars and many lost customers. Step 2 Develop your professional cooking skills. Usually, this means working in the food service industry for many years. However, attending a respected culinary will move you to the head of the line. Step 3 Get experience in management. An executive chef must demonstrate the skill to manage the
“Well, there are basically two paths to becoming an executive chef. There’s the apprenticeship path, where you kind of learn by experience, and then there’s the schooling path. Nowadays most people are doing the schooling path where you go to a culinary school, and you put in your hours and you pay your dues and you just keep working your way up through. And the other path would be the apprenticeship where it’s a lot more of just paying your dues. At least with a culinary program, you get some of the basics down all at once and you learn a lot of the bookwork part of the accounting and the management and the type of stuff. The apprenticeship path usually is given through the ACF, The American Culinary Federation. And it is a documented program where you have to reach a certain amount of hours doing certain things and you get credit for those things. There are two schools of thought on that. I’ve had good employees come from both sections. And then that’s just to be a, to become a chef.
