10 Things I Learned My First Year Working In A Kitchen
A reflection on my first year working as a Cook and some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
The hot-line of a Professional Kitchen isn’t for everyone. As the saying goes, “if you can’t stand the heat, get the F*** out the kitchen!”. Truer words have never been said. I learned that the hard way in my first year of cooking. The kitchen is no place for people that can’t handle the pressure. It can be a very intimidating line of work. However, it can also be very fun and rewarding.
The thought of being in the kitchen while there is a dinner rush gets me pumped up. It’s an indescribable feeling of adrenaline when you're in the weeds. It’s a feeling that only comes from pride and passion for what you do. That is what I feel about being a Cook and an aspiring Chef. This article, in no particular order of importance, will take you through the 10 most important things I learned in my first year while working in one of the toughest, competitive, and stressful industries in the world.
1. The simplest tasks aren’t always easy:
PRECISION, PRECISION, PRECISION! That is the mark of a great Cook. It’s not what you’re able to do; it’s how you’re able to do it. The one thing every Profession has in common is that having a good foundation base to start from and grow from is the key to mastery. Mastery of one's craft comes from the simplistic and substantive prerequisite skills that serve as a guideline for doing what you do properly. That is especially true in the Cooking Profession. It also serves as a standard for what the tolerance level is for the Chef and Restaurant you work for.
Every successful business has what we call “core values,” and one of the core values of a Restaurant with high standards is that they honor the code of mastering the basics in the kitchen. For example, working in a kitchen, if you cannot correctly hold a knife, you cannot cut with precision and consistency. It’s a basic skill. Yes, but what great Chefs and Restaurants with low tolerance levels of inconsistency look for is your foundational baseline for how you meticulously go about cooking or preparing the task at hand. Your level of consistency will be apparent by how well you do the simple things and something as simple as how to hold a knife properly.
This was an important lesson for me in my first year working as a cook because it’s easier said than done. Or, in this case, easier to explain than to do. Something as simple as holding a knife properly on a professional level is a foreign concept for those that don’t cook on the professional level. Especially when you're used to cutting or holding a knife the same way you would if you were just casually cooking in the comfort of your own home. Cooking at home and cooking in a restaurant for strangers are two very different standards of cooking. I learned that lesson the hard way.
One of the things I noticed early on in my still-young career is that if your Executive Chef is walking by and sees you mishandling or not doing something properly, he/she will make it a point to stop you in your tracks. I can’t tell you how many times I have been stopped in my tracks, told to stop doing what I’m doing, and being told that I’m not doing my task the proper or correct way. It’s hard to eliminate bad cooking techniques and habits when you’ve never been asked to hold a certain standard. It takes a lot of muscle memory and repetition to master the art of cooking so that you can effectively put out consistent and delicious food.
This is truly behind the delicious and beautiful food that goes into a dish from your favorite Restaurant. It’s the art form, preparation, precision, and basics that help formulate some of the best dishes and some of your favorite dishes that you’ve experienced for yourself.
2. Not every cook cares as much as you do:
One of the common known realities of any profession is that not every job you work for will have employees that are as passionate as you are. They won’t always care as much as you do, and they’re there to collect a check. That’s fine with me and should be fine with you.
If you don’t care, it’s easier for me to stand out—less competition. In a feisty, competitive profession like cooking, I’ll gladly take it. It tells me I’ll learn more than you because I care, plus I’ll do your job as well as you can. On the flip side, it's often bothersome to work with someone who doesn’t care when you and that person have to rely on each other or work a station together.
3. The Sous Chef isn’t necessarily a great cook:
I won't name any names for obvious reasons, but I cannot tell you how many times I’ve already come across experienced Sous Chefs with minimal to no innovative talent or cooking skills. I find it very interesting that in just one year I’ve discovered that you don’t have to be a great cook to be a Sou’s Chef.
A Sou’s Chef’s job is to know the whole menu, do occasional administrative work for the Head Chef, and help manage the cooking line. I’ve found that the best Sou’s Chefs not only can administer, lead, and cook but that they will also teach. That’s right. The best Sous Chef that I’ve worked with taught me a lot, and he taught me how to do things the right way, even when the “head honchos” weren’t looking.
This Sous Chef (let's call him Lue) had zero ego, was willing to teach you new things the right way, and could do everyone’s job better than they could. He earned his respect and position as a Sous Chef because he mastered his craft to the full extent. He didn’t just bark orders or manage; he was also a great teacher and could kick ass behind the hot-line with all the other Line- Cooks. Having a great Sous Chef like Lue is crucial to a busy kitchen because the Chef de Cuisine or Executive Chef usually is too busy to teach and doesn’t always have time to give individual instruction to new cooks in the kitchen that are still “green” like I am.
Being “green” in the cooking world is another term for being a beginner or a rookie. When you have a rookie or multiple rookies in your kitchen, you must have a solid Sous Chef like Lue that can teach in all aspects of the kitchen and has respect for the art and craft that is being a Chef.
On the contrary, there have been Sous Chefs I have worked with that cannot make something as simple as a pot of rice and that do the bare minimum and allows or accepts mediocrity from the Cooks when the Head Chef isn’t around. I’ve learned that as a serious career Cook, these (what my father calls) “junkyard cooks” are people to stay away from in the business and not pick up their horrible cooking habits. Whether they’re your superior or not, you should always hold yourself to a high standard and take pride in your work as a Cook.
4. Front of house staff can be agitating to deal with:
This is one of my biggest pet-peeves about working in a kitchen thus far in my career. Nothing is more agitating than having an impatient server/waiter hovering over your station asking a million times when their order/table will be ready. On the one hand, I can understand the impatience or sense of urgency from waiters/servers. A huge part of their income comes from customer tips. If they’re not on top of how long their table's food will take or not being attentive, they won’t get a good tip. I can empathize with that.
On the other hand, I have little to no patience in wanting or having to deal with servers/waiters that don’t respect boundaries. There’s a very thin line between asking when food will be ready and coming into the work station and hovering over a Cook. I can’t stand it. It seems unusual, but the truth is, I’ve seen it and experienced it myself on numerous occasions.
I’ve also personally been in a situation where I once didn’t hesitate to curse out a fellow waiter and put him in his place for not being professional. While working in a kitchen full of egos, adrenaline, and at times stress, I've learned that it’s ok to be unapologetic and firm. In situations where boundaries are crossed, it’s a necessity. Cook to front-of-house interaction is one of the things I or any other aspiring Chef will have to deal with for the entirety of our career. It’s the one thing I honestly don’t look forward to when coming into work.
5. You’re going to make tons of mistakes:
This is a given when starting in any profession. In the kitchen, getting the right temperatures, seasoning, and cooking times all at once isn’t easy. Having to do it all at once for multiple tickets and orders makes it that much harder, and in a Restaurant like mine, with high volume, you are bound to make mistakes. You will get yelled at. You will have to have tough skin.
Your intestinal fortitude will be put to the test, and there will be days where you feel like you’re not good enough. I’ve had my fair share of days where I was very disappointed in my performance on the hot-line. But I’ve learned that these are the days that are most crucial to your growth.
You have to be determined to come back in to work with a clean slate the next day and understand that tomorrow is a fresh start to be better than the day before. It’s a chance to make new mistakes and learn from them. With each mistake made along the way, you’re that much closer to building the mental toughness, tough skin, and character required to succeed in this business.
6. You find out what you're made of:
Amid all the ups and downs of working in the kitchen, you’ll learn right away if this is the kind of work that is right for you. It’s a grueling grind, and each day presents an unknown challenge. I say this because I’m sure many people love the idea of being a Cook, but until you work as one, you won’t know if you can handle the strenuous job requirements.
I learned early on in my career that not only can I handle the pressure of working in a kitchen, but I crave it. The adrenaline rush and high I get when I’m in a busy kitchen are like an addictive drug that I can’t get enough of. It’s a feeling that I look forward to when I start my workday.
7. Hard work, dedication, and an interest to learn pay off:
I always took an interest in asking a lot of questions during my first year as a Cook. It’s crucial to ask questions if you don’t know something. Asking questions and working hard show that you care. In the kitchen, if you show any interest in learning something new, for example, a new working station, it shows an interest in what you do.
Showing interest in learning a new cooking station also shows that you’re dedicated and determined to learn everything there is to know outside of your job description. It makes you more valuable to the Restaurant when you know how to work multiple stations. The Head Chefs are prone to be more willing to teach the Cooks they know want to learn.
Head Chefs have enough things to worry about in the kitchen, and they don’t want to waste their time teaching Cooks that aren’t proactively trying to learn. As a career-minded Cook, I always want more responsibility and am always actively seeking more knowledge. Because of my proactiveness, I was able to work on multiple cooking stations well in my first year. It’s hard work and sacrifice. I’ve worked for free many days and weeks in my first year. I did it and will continue doing so because in a very competitive field, I have the hunger (pun intended) will, passion and determination to do whatever it takes to succeed in this business.
I take great pride in the fact that I was entrusted to work multiple stations in just one year of being a Line-Cook. That wouldn't have happened if I wasn’t learning, asking questions, working on my own time for free, and dedicated to my craft.
8. Time Management:
Time is everything when you’re in the kitchen. If it’s a busy day with lots of customers, being efficient while still putting out and cooking quality dishes in a timely manner is crucial to a restaurant's success. On the flipside to that, if the Restaurant isn’t busy and there isn’t much work to do, you better find something to do, or your hours will get cut, and you’ll be sent home.
Most Line-Cooks get paid an hourly wage, so the Restaurant and or Head Chef wants to make sure they’re getting the most efficiently productive Cooks for their time paid. It’s a cut-throat business, and if you’re not moving your a** to get S*** done, then you’re fighting a losing battle if you think you’ll be able to last, working in a professional kitchen.
9. Multi-Tasking:
It can’t be understated just how important being able to multi-task is. When you’re coming in for your shift, how you prep your station will set the tone for the kind of performance you’ll have when it’s time to cook. Prepping my station efficiently before service admittingly was something that I struggled with early on in my still-young career. It can be very overwhelming. There are many things to prep an hour or 2 just before service begins.
It’s a skill that I had gotten better and better at throughout my first year of cooking. What helped me the most in improving in this area is just taking advice from my Head Chef, who once told me to take out pen and paper and write down the list of preparations needed for my station. Do the ones that will take the most time first, and work on the easy, less strenuous ones in the meantime.
For instance, if you’re putting sweet potatoes in the oven for 13 minutes, in those 13 minutes you should be able to complete 1, 2, or even 3 other tasks. This is crucial for a Restaurant’s efficiency because, as stated before, it ensures that the Business/Restaurant is getting the most production for their hours paid to employees. Being able to multi-task is a huge component to having a successful Restaurant with cooks that are productive and efficient.
10. Having a great mentor is crucial to speeding up your learning curve and improving your skills:
Part of my cooking journey all started while watching my Father growing up. My Father is an award-winning and highly successful Chef who has invested time and effort in teaching me the intricacies of becoming a Chef. It’s great to have someone I know and care about be my mentor in this long road ahead of me toward becoming a Chef one day. It’s gratifying to share a common interest and be in the same line of work as my Father.
I can remember being a middle school kid, my Father would take me to the restaurant he worked for at the time, and I would work with him. They were fond memories that set the foundation for my passion for working in the kitchen.
There isn’t a better mentor in this business than my own Father, who has been cooking for over 15 years and can relate to some of the early struggles in my career. His guidance helped cut the learning curve during my first year of cooking because he’s prepared and help me understand what to expect. His knowledge and acquired taste for high-end Michelin star Quality food have given me an interesting and unique look at what it means to be a Chef.
He’s opened my eyes up to the elite level quality of food. From the perfect combination of colors, precisional plating, and flavors of a dish from Dan Barber’s Blue Hill, to the simple yet savory dishes from the two Michelin-starred Aquavit, my Father has given me a glimpse of what it looks and tastes like to be the best in this business. Through my Father’s continued mentorship and guidance, I know I can and will continue to reach milestones within my career that will one day lead to me being as great if not a greater Chef than he is someday.
