Here at itk Recruitment, we love everything about catering and hospitality – it’s as simple as that. And we absolutely love recruiting staff for these areas of employment. Whether it is general manager, kitchen manager or chef de partie work, we strive to find the best people for each job that we advertise.
Here, we talk you through the different steps you will need to go through if you ever want to be a head chef and in charge of an entire kitchen.
Commis Chef
The first step on the ladder to becoming a great head chef.
With it being the beginning of your catering career, you will be dealing with food preparation and basic cooking, whilst being supervised by the chef de partie.
You will move around the different sections of the kitchen regularly to gain experience in all of them. These sections are meat, sauces, vegetables, fish and pastry.
The start of your learning as a chef can be tough but it is totally worth it.
Chef De Partie
Another important role – you get to oversee and be in control of a specific area of the kitchen, whether it be fish, pastry, vegetables, sauces or meat; so finding a speciality for yourself is what you need to do.
In a larger kitchen, you will probably have a demi-chef de partie that will be on hand to help you.
You are likely to be serving French cuisine or fine dining, although modern kitchens will offer informal or contemporary dishes.
Sous Chef
You can get to this role from just having on-the-job training, but a quicker route there is to have some form of qualification, especially City & Guilds or a BTEC.
As a Sous Chef, a lot of responsibility rests on your shoulders. The role is an extremely challenging one, especially since you will be in charge of the kitchen when the head chef isn’t there.
You will have group of chefs that are your responsibility, you will need to ensure that their standards are as high as possible.
Being the right-hand man for the head chef means you are of huge importance and have a big say in recipes and menus, whilst also controlling the ordering of foods and ingredients.
Head Chef
The big man in the kitchen, the boss and the one everyone looks up to due to their experience and fantastic cooking abilities.
The restaurants reputation will rest on your shoulders as people will ultimately judge the food you are cooking and serving.
The recruitment, management and training of all your staff is your responsibility, as well as producing fantastic dishes and menus.
Checking out chef recruitment agencies is a wonderful place to find suitable people for your catering area.
Like we previously said, you will have a sous chef working as your deputy of the kitchen.