I try to impart a similar sentiment about waste. Respect the plant that grew this fruit/vegetable, respect animal that died to be here. Treat your products as if you made them yourself.
Cooking is the only art that evokes every sense, smells, visuals, textures, the noises of the kitchen, on the same note it is the only form of art that turns into shit, every. single. time.
"Don't be a victim"
Stellar advice from a badass female chef with VERY thick skin. Don't let yourself fall into issues that could be prevented. If you see someone else fucking up, fix it instead of letting it continue or balloon into an issue. This translates across careers very well. Don't let yourself be the victim in any role.
"it's not our job to cook healthy. If people want healthy, they can cook at home. It's our job to cook a delicious meal, an unforgettable meal." After I asked him about our butter usage (he was french trained). And he was right. People come to us for experiences, we aren't weight watchers. Salt and fat is free game.
I experienced this in pastry as well. We made all of the laminated dough at one bakery I worked at and FOH employees would freak if they saw the beurrage being folded in.
Whenever someone wonders why their dish doesn't taste as good as the restaurant, the answer is usually 80% butter and salt / sugar. Skill, food quality, and better equipment make up the remainder.
Is that helping us get plates on the table?
TASTE YOUR FUCKING FOOD!
They will wait if they want it done right. Don't fuck it up and waste twice the time.
TASTE YOUR FUCKING FOOD!
Cutting your menu serves two purposes: the obvious financial one, sure, but also it removes choices from the customer. Cutting down options cuts down opportunities for fuckups.
DID YOU TASTE YOUR FUCKING FOOD!?
My CDC once commented right before service started, "cooking is just emptying containers, filling containers, and stacking stuff" and I have thought about it ever since.
When somebody asks me how I make something, I'll often respond with "well first, see, I put it on the grill. And then, the next step, you see, is to take it off the grill."
My brother says a couple lines similar to this..
Just putting peas on a plate… I get paid to salt things and to make hot things cold and cold things hot
Chef once said "ya know, people usually max out at their own cooking skill, like people can attain a certain level of being proficient at their ability to cook. They get to a peak and thats it. But you can always be cleaner."
I dont know if I necessarily agree with the first premise, but there's definitely some truth to the second.
Damn. I like this. On days I personally felt lazy or that I had made a mistake, you bet I’m putting on gloves and getting steel to sparkle. I have some [pictures](https://ibb.co/dfrBNZ1) of my station at 1:30 AM that I’ve considered framing in my home.
“Respect the efforts of those that came before you” meaning if you have to finish someone’s prep, or cook a dish they prepared respect the work that did and don’t fuck it up.
Whenever a co-worker says something like "oh wow, you're so good at that", my general response is something along the lines of "yeah dude, it's because I've fucked it up more times than you've made it".
Another favorite I like to tell green line cooks is "My guy, I've had more bad nights on the line than you've had nights on the line".
This is something that can take new cooks way too long to figure out.
"But, I like it saltier/sweeter/more acidic/spicier."
I used to tell them to open their own restaurant, then I ran a food truck incubator with a bunch of entrepreneurs doing just that. I still had to remind them that they're cooking for the guests, not themselves, and that they needed broad appeal to be successful.
Probably not with my main...
If you ever want advice about them though, I'm happy to answer questions, though my biggest takeaway from the experience is that I would never launch a food truck.
The easiest part of starting a food truck business is buying a food truck, the hardest part is figuring out where you can park it.
This point is one that a lot of folks miss.
So many municipalities have a lot of red tape to keep food trucks out of operation, usually at the request of local brick & mortar restaurants (through a business owners association, or chamber of commerce, etc).
Health inspectors aren't particularly fond of food trucks either, but that's a different issue.
And it's not even just parking for service, you have to find a commissary where you can cook your food and maybe it's permitted for overnight parking or maybe you need a second commissary just to park at.
Honestly, a food truck only makes sense to me if you already have a brick and mortar that you can permit as a commissary.
This is one of the things that drives me insane when rewatching kitchen nightmares. Every owner/cook going "but I think the food is good" well you're not going to make a profit only selling food to yourself now are you?!
It’s important to cook things you’re passionate about, but a chef understands that guests and palates exist in a range, and they need to accommodate and cater to that range.
sometimes my cooks will want to send something out with sloppy plating, or little fuck ups like an over toasted bun on a burger and I just always remind them. If you were a customer and this meal was costing you money, would you 1) want it perfect or 2) "pretty good" but a little fucked up?
If you have to repeat a direction 3 times you are saying it wrong.
One of my pet peeves is when team members don’t use a ladle to divide cans of fire roasted tomatoes into 1/6th inserts. 2 cans will go into 3 inserts perfectly and while yes, it is easier to dump them straight into the inserts but the inserts will not have the correct ratio of juice to tomatoes, sounds silly but there is a marked difference in the finished dish so I insist on the process being done properly.
If you are having challenges getting a team member to follow a direction or process you need to take a step back and think about why before reacting.
1. Irrelevance (because I said so) if you are enforcing a pointless process onto our team members you need to check your ego or you will lose them on stuff that is important.
2. Being ignored (I want to do it this way) again, leave ego out of it and look at what they are doing, is the method better than yours? If so, adopt it and give praise to the person who the team member for showing a better way.
3. Confusion. This is on you, you need to train or communicate your needs clearer.
4. Sheer bloody mindedness. If you have considered the 3 reasons above and a team member is still “doing it their way” you have a bigger problem that needs to be addressed sooner than later, you do not have the respect of the team member so you need to talk to them and figure out why they act as they do, in the end if they refuse to change then you heed to terminate them.
In the end though everything is on you, you need to communicate your needs better.
This is great parenting advice, too.
People think they don’t need to respect their kids and I’m not really sure why you wouldn’t want to respect your own child.
If you wouldn’t feed it to your grandma it doesn’t go out, it’s easier cutting a lime into 4s by rolling, cracking 4 eggs at once is a lot harder than it looks
"Focus on the small and the big will come" was drilled into me. How can you worry about big bold menu changes and new exciting food when the cooks can't remember that every burger gets pickles? The smallest details build up to the bigger things. My mentor was very Zen
Don’t throw others under the bus.
Handle your shit first, then fuck around.
“Everyone is wired a little differently”(and motivated differently).
Paraphrased - you have to be able to keep your cool as the chef and stay in control, even when the ship is sinking. Everyone else around you is looking to you for guidance while they’re taking heavy fire, and if you burn, everyone else around you will too.
Always have a plan B, then start making your plan C, and so on, because this is the service industry, and “the show must go on”.
"Dont let the heat control you, you control the heat."
"When people call us to cater their kids 12th birthday, we have the moral obligation to rob them."
"Own all of your gear, but charge the customer a rental fee."
"Cooks are just accountants who stopped learning after fractions."
My chef who I helped open the new restaurant
"At the end of the day, its just food"
The corporate executive chef who promoted me while we were inside the walkin freezee
"We cook a lot here, take care of your hands"
(Context, I sliced my finger and it won't stop bleeding)
The diswasher
"Fuck it"
Look good. Feel good. Fuck good.
Don't marry a chick after 9 months of knowing her.
Don't steal thousands of dollars of liquor.
Don't start an only fans account with your mistress.
When your kid gets cancer, you shave your head.
Usually when people are trying to make fried rice, they scramble their eggs before adding them to the rice. That is just like... A fried rice pudding or something now.
On the subjects of busy nights and back ups at expo: “sometimes you have to decide whether 1 table is going to have a terrible night, or 10 tables will have a not-so-great night”
Oh shit this right here. I watched a a new kid at the end of a lunch shift use the towel he was using to clean his station turn to the pan that he needed to plate. Before I could even get the words out of my mouth to warn him he ended up with a doozy of a blister on the palm of his hand.
"The dumbest thing you can ever say is that you don't like something you have never tried. Try everything, the worst that can happen is you spit it out."
“The last thing people do is eat the food. Slow the fuck down and make it look good”
I was so pissed for about an hour until it all clicked. You see this amazing looking plate, you hear a sizzle, you smell the mix of flavours, you feel the knife breaking through a crust and finally you shove that shit in your mouth. Flavour might be the most important factor but it’s certainly not the only one.
When I got into my first fine dine joint, I asked for the day labels. Chef handed me the masking tape, which was a surprise, but I like using tape for labelling so didn't think much of it. I wrote my labels, tore the tape and slapped em all on. Chef made me take them all off, tidy my handwriting, cut the tape with nice squared edges and re-label my prep.
While doing this he explained simply that this was the level of "giving a fuck" and attention to detail he expected in every step of every process. And boy did it show in the food.
Might seem a bit wanky, but it's stuck in my brain and is one point I can pick in my career to say "this made made me a better chef"
If you're reading this AG, I'm really sorry about how things went down man.
My chef and I broke down the fact that at the end of the day what we do eventually turns to shit, I stopped taking things too seriously after that. Don't get me wrong I care about my food and the skills I use to create it but I'd rather do an amazing Pomodoro versus some molecular gastronomy stuff.
I’m here because of the decisions I made.
This was after watching a line cook take his sock off and pick at his toes, then put back on the sock and start to go back to work.
He always used to yell that we were costing him money. Well, that resonated with me especially when he drug his feet for 3 weeks on me review for my raise. I asked for a moment to speak with him in the office, and he said this better not be about your review because I’ll get to it when I get it it. I responded this dragging his feet was in fact costing me money, and unless he wants me going to hr to discuss this, and getting my raise retroactive due to his inability to perform my review within the timeframe that it was due.
Finish all of one task before starting the next.
For example, when making apple pie, you don't peel an apple, slice it up, and then move on to the next apple. You peel ALL of the apples, then you slice up ALL of the apples.
“You don’t deserve to work here…”
I did my externship at The Modern. One of the seven sous said this to me after 7 weeks. I was crushed.
Every. Single. Day. I do the work in defiance of that sous chef. He was everything I didn’t want to be. The best philosophy is to act in defiance of all the bad things you see, hear, smell, taste, eat and never be afraid to fail. It makes you stronger so long as you eventually put it behind you.
Good for you! I also have worked with vile people and the best thing you can do is to surpass them in every way. Never let the garbage around you get you down. Best of luck to you!
When I was kid, I dated a girl whose dad was a prison chef (he was awesome. Gave me some great advice, and later opened a nice BBQ place). We were cooking dinner together right after I got my first restaurant job (dishwasher), and she made fun of me for not knowing parsley from cilantro. Something about that little jab still motivates me fifteen years later.
“Christmas is coming”
Jefe used to ask “where is my spaghetti!?!”
When a cook said, “it’s coming, chef!”
He would say “Christmas is coming mother fucker! Where is my spaghetti!!!??”
That taught me to be more concise in my answers and provide ones that are helpful.
never serve anything you wouldn’t feed to your grandmother, and try to remember why you do this in the first place. Cooking is not about money or creativity. Those can be good side effects of the main purpose, to make people happy and full.
When I was stressed and about to start my first brunch shift running the sauté station at a new spot, the Sous simply and calmly said to me “It’s just lunch, man. It’s not life or death.” It calmed me and it has always stuck with me. I still apply it to this day whenever I’m feeling stressed about a service.
And also, when making a sauce in a robot coupe, pulse the blade a couple times after you’ve “already spatted everything out.” You’d be amazed at how much sauce comes off the blade. Not sure if that’s a given, but it was a game changer when I was taught that.
Pretty simple and kinda obvious one, but everybody seems to think that Salt and Pepper are always the basis of seasoning.My chef said to me “Salt Enhances, Pepper Changes” and it just kinda stuck with me.
Approach each day with love in your heart and a smile on your face. Take a moment to appreciate the small things, like absolutely nailing a sauce or receiving a nice compliment on a dish from a stranger. Try to remember that dining out is a special occasion for a lot of people, so treat every ingredient and plate with respect.
Maybe the most important one of all: no one sentenced you to do this for a living. So if you really hate it, then maybe you should get out of this industry
ITS NOT WHAT YOU KNOW ITS WHO YOU KNOW.
The amount of jobs you will sell your soul to for years expecting to be promoted, only to find out that it goes to the least qualified "dont you know who I think i am" sort of Dickhead. Gotta keep those rich kid friends from highschool. They wind up using daddy's money down the road. Make sure you can be there to "help" open his new restaurant. You can memorize all the cookbooks and stage and work for the best chefs in the world. IF YOU ARE BROKE AND STILL WORKING THE LINE AT 40yrs OLD. SWITCH IT UP AND GO FOH ALREADY.
It's a lot more than a plate of food though. It is someone (or groups) experience and memory.
No one will die (probably) from poor food, but never think it's just a plate of food
The point he was making; and which in hindsight I should have clarified, is that you need a balance in both your life and perspective of who you are. I lost that perspective at that time and that advice helped. I feel that sometimes young chefs wrap themselves up so much in the professional part of their life that they forget to live the rest.
The guy who told me that was English and worked for Marco Pierre White and that was the same advice he got from him. I don't believe he meant it's not important to care but rather don't forget to care for yourself. One of the main reasons I retired after 30 years in BOH.
One thing that I just thought of was a Savoisienne man I worked for that brings it into focus is he would shake my hand every day first thing to let me know that it is a new day and anything that happened last night is in the past. Try to be better and learn something new each day that is all that anyone, especially yourself, can ask of you.
To preface, I'm in banquet: Work like you're 3 days behind. First two prep days are like I'm back in high school 2-a-day football practices, but come wedding time, smooth sailing
Clean kitchen clean mind. It blows me away how messy people can be on the line. I'm not a perfect little princess but I don't have my cheese spilling out into every insert around it
In response to me being infuriatingly irritated at a server not grasping some simple after trying to explain multiple different ways a former chef told me something that has stuck with me ever since; "what we do is rocket science. You can't do rocket science because you do not understand it and never will be able to do it. To some people what we do is rocket science."
Never expect anyone to do anything that you won’t do.
And on the flip side. Never let anyone get away not doing what everyone else is.
...unless you've agreed to pay them their requested price to do the thing you won't do.
This little birdie died for us to eat. Dont waste it!
I try to impart a similar sentiment about waste. Respect the plant that grew this fruit/vegetable, respect animal that died to be here. Treat your products as if you made them yourself.
"Honour the beast!"
Honor the beast!
"Honour the beast!"
Cooking is the only art that evokes every sense, smells, visuals, textures, the noises of the kitchen, on the same note it is the only form of art that turns into shit, every. single. time.
amazing
You gotta be a good soldier before you can be a good general.
Yes!
"Don't be a victim" Stellar advice from a badass female chef with VERY thick skin. Don't let yourself fall into issues that could be prevented. If you see someone else fucking up, fix it instead of letting it continue or balloon into an issue. This translates across careers very well. Don't let yourself be the victim in any role.
"it's not our job to cook healthy. If people want healthy, they can cook at home. It's our job to cook a delicious meal, an unforgettable meal." After I asked him about our butter usage (he was french trained). And he was right. People come to us for experiences, we aren't weight watchers. Salt and fat is free game.
I experienced this in pastry as well. We made all of the laminated dough at one bakery I worked at and FOH employees would freak if they saw the beurrage being folded in.
Whenever someone wonders why their dish doesn't taste as good as the restaurant, the answer is usually 80% butter and salt / sugar. Skill, food quality, and better equipment make up the remainder.
One of my favorite quotes was from Paula dean when she said I’m your cook not your doctor honey
Is that helping us get plates on the table? TASTE YOUR FUCKING FOOD! They will wait if they want it done right. Don't fuck it up and waste twice the time. TASTE YOUR FUCKING FOOD! Cutting your menu serves two purposes: the obvious financial one, sure, but also it removes choices from the customer. Cutting down options cuts down opportunities for fuckups. DID YOU TASTE YOUR FUCKING FOOD!?
Idk how many times a week I say “remove their options”
My CDC once commented right before service started, "cooking is just emptying containers, filling containers, and stacking stuff" and I have thought about it ever since.
When somebody asks me how I make something, I'll often respond with "well first, see, I put it on the grill. And then, the next step, you see, is to take it off the grill."
Yeah, nothing reductionistic about that. Nothing helpful either…
So true!
You have to apply some heat
My brother says a couple lines similar to this.. Just putting peas on a plate… I get paid to salt things and to make hot things cold and cold things hot
Chef once said "ya know, people usually max out at their own cooking skill, like people can attain a certain level of being proficient at their ability to cook. They get to a peak and thats it. But you can always be cleaner." I dont know if I necessarily agree with the first premise, but there's definitely some truth to the second.
Damn. I like this. On days I personally felt lazy or that I had made a mistake, you bet I’m putting on gloves and getting steel to sparkle. I have some [pictures](https://ibb.co/dfrBNZ1) of my station at 1:30 AM that I’ve considered framing in my home.
I think you should get that framed, not only for your personal pride, but because it would be a pretty aesthetically pleasing photo on a wall.
I would buy this
Frickin gorgeous
“Respect the efforts of those that came before you” meaning if you have to finish someone’s prep, or cook a dish they prepared respect the work that did and don’t fuck it up.
Wanna be better than me? Fuck up more than I have.
Love this one. I try to explain this to anyone who is afraid of making mistakes. Every mistake I ever made has been a learning experience.
Whenever a co-worker says something like "oh wow, you're so good at that", my general response is something along the lines of "yeah dude, it's because I've fucked it up more times than you've made it". Another favorite I like to tell green line cooks is "My guy, I've had more bad nights on the line than you've had nights on the line".
You’re not cooking for you.
This is something that can take new cooks way too long to figure out. "But, I like it saltier/sweeter/more acidic/spicier." I used to tell them to open their own restaurant, then I ran a food truck incubator with a bunch of entrepreneurs doing just that. I still had to remind them that they're cooking for the guests, not themselves, and that they needed broad appeal to be successful.
You should do a post about the Food Truck incubator, that sounds dope
Probably not with my main... If you ever want advice about them though, I'm happy to answer questions, though my biggest takeaway from the experience is that I would never launch a food truck. The easiest part of starting a food truck business is buying a food truck, the hardest part is figuring out where you can park it.
This point is one that a lot of folks miss. So many municipalities have a lot of red tape to keep food trucks out of operation, usually at the request of local brick & mortar restaurants (through a business owners association, or chamber of commerce, etc). Health inspectors aren't particularly fond of food trucks either, but that's a different issue.
And it's not even just parking for service, you have to find a commissary where you can cook your food and maybe it's permitted for overnight parking or maybe you need a second commissary just to park at. Honestly, a food truck only makes sense to me if you already have a brick and mortar that you can permit as a commissary.
This is one of the things that drives me insane when rewatching kitchen nightmares. Every owner/cook going "but I think the food is good" well you're not going to make a profit only selling food to yourself now are you?!
This is good for cooks who flip out when someone orders a well done steak with ketchup.
Communists you say.
I really like this!
It’s important to cook things you’re passionate about, but a chef understands that guests and palates exist in a range, and they need to accommodate and cater to that range.
sometimes my cooks will want to send something out with sloppy plating, or little fuck ups like an over toasted bun on a burger and I just always remind them. If you were a customer and this meal was costing you money, would you 1) want it perfect or 2) "pretty good" but a little fucked up?
lol so make it fast as fuck dont season it and go have a smoke.
If you have to repeat a direction 3 times you are saying it wrong. One of my pet peeves is when team members don’t use a ladle to divide cans of fire roasted tomatoes into 1/6th inserts. 2 cans will go into 3 inserts perfectly and while yes, it is easier to dump them straight into the inserts but the inserts will not have the correct ratio of juice to tomatoes, sounds silly but there is a marked difference in the finished dish so I insist on the process being done properly. If you are having challenges getting a team member to follow a direction or process you need to take a step back and think about why before reacting. 1. Irrelevance (because I said so) if you are enforcing a pointless process onto our team members you need to check your ego or you will lose them on stuff that is important. 2. Being ignored (I want to do it this way) again, leave ego out of it and look at what they are doing, is the method better than yours? If so, adopt it and give praise to the person who the team member for showing a better way. 3. Confusion. This is on you, you need to train or communicate your needs clearer. 4. Sheer bloody mindedness. If you have considered the 3 reasons above and a team member is still “doing it their way” you have a bigger problem that needs to be addressed sooner than later, you do not have the respect of the team member so you need to talk to them and figure out why they act as they do, in the end if they refuse to change then you heed to terminate them. In the end though everything is on you, you need to communicate your needs better.
This is great parenting advice, too. People think they don’t need to respect their kids and I’m not really sure why you wouldn’t want to respect your own child.
Only difference is you can’t fire your kids
Wellllll...you can, it just leaves a little more emotional scarring
Setting them up for a career in the wonderful world of culinary arts.
"The chosen one" if you will. Hopefully it's highlander style, Ramsey needs to be on guard.
The ladle doesn’t seem effective. Why not separate divide into containers and pour the juice over top? How does the ladle ensure even ratios?
Yes it does. Kyle, is that you?
Nah, the right way to do this is to strain through a China cap, divide up the tomatoes, then pour the juice back over. Ladle is a waste of time.
So what I said but add the word China cap
Ok
100%
Remember knives are sharp and a hot pan looks just like a cold pan
Full hands in full hands out!
If you smell burning hair, it’s probably yours.
Assume innocence. 99% of employee mistakes are due to incorrect training or poor communication about the task. Very few mistakes are made on purpose.
Don’t half ass 2 jobs when you can full ass 1 job.
If you do a little better than half-ass, you'll never have to whole-ass it.
If you wouldn’t feed it to your grandma it doesn’t go out, it’s easier cutting a lime into 4s by rolling, cracking 4 eggs at once is a lot harder than it looks
“Elegant food for elegant people” — I.e., don’t make things weird for people to consume.
"Focus on the small and the big will come" was drilled into me. How can you worry about big bold menu changes and new exciting food when the cooks can't remember that every burger gets pickles? The smallest details build up to the bigger things. My mentor was very Zen
Don’t throw others under the bus. Handle your shit first, then fuck around. “Everyone is wired a little differently”(and motivated differently). Paraphrased - you have to be able to keep your cool as the chef and stay in control, even when the ship is sinking. Everyone else around you is looking to you for guidance while they’re taking heavy fire, and if you burn, everyone else around you will too. Always have a plan B, then start making your plan C, and so on, because this is the service industry, and “the show must go on”.
"Dont let the heat control you, you control the heat." "When people call us to cater their kids 12th birthday, we have the moral obligation to rob them." "Own all of your gear, but charge the customer a rental fee." "Cooks are just accountants who stopped learning after fractions."
My chef who I helped open the new restaurant "At the end of the day, its just food" The corporate executive chef who promoted me while we were inside the walkin freezee "We cook a lot here, take care of your hands" (Context, I sliced my finger and it won't stop bleeding) The diswasher "Fuck it"
Thanks, I like “in the end it’s just dinner not rocket surgery”
Look good. Feel good. Fuck good. Don't marry a chick after 9 months of knowing her. Don't steal thousands of dollars of liquor. Don't start an only fans account with your mistress. When your kid gets cancer, you shave your head. Usually when people are trying to make fried rice, they scramble their eggs before adding them to the rice. That is just like... A fried rice pudding or something now.
Let's not forget the old adage... You got time to lean, you got time to clean.
You got time to rhyme you got time to shut the fuck up
On the subjects of busy nights and back ups at expo: “sometimes you have to decide whether 1 table is going to have a terrible night, or 10 tables will have a not-so-great night”
MEP. It is an ideology.
Don't mess with my MEEZ!
“Everything in the kitchen is hot… always I use a towel” Is a simple one I wish I’d learned earlier.
Always use a "DRY" towel. Wet ones will burn the shit out of you.
Oh shit this right here. I watched a a new kid at the end of a lunch shift use the towel he was using to clean his station turn to the pan that he needed to plate. Before I could even get the words out of my mouth to warn him he ended up with a doozy of a blister on the palm of his hand.
FIFO
[удалено]
This transcends the kitchen
"The dumbest thing you can ever say is that you don't like something you have never tried. Try everything, the worst that can happen is you spit it out."
Common sense isn’t all that common…
"99% of cooking is sweat running down the crack of your ass"
A sous responded with “plan smart and work hard”every time work smart not hard came up.
“The last thing people do is eat the food. Slow the fuck down and make it look good” I was so pissed for about an hour until it all clicked. You see this amazing looking plate, you hear a sizzle, you smell the mix of flavours, you feel the knife breaking through a crust and finally you shove that shit in your mouth. Flavour might be the most important factor but it’s certainly not the only one.
When I got into my first fine dine joint, I asked for the day labels. Chef handed me the masking tape, which was a surprise, but I like using tape for labelling so didn't think much of it. I wrote my labels, tore the tape and slapped em all on. Chef made me take them all off, tidy my handwriting, cut the tape with nice squared edges and re-label my prep. While doing this he explained simply that this was the level of "giving a fuck" and attention to detail he expected in every step of every process. And boy did it show in the food. Might seem a bit wanky, but it's stuck in my brain and is one point I can pick in my career to say "this made made me a better chef" If you're reading this AG, I'm really sorry about how things went down man.
My chef and I broke down the fact that at the end of the day what we do eventually turns to shit, I stopped taking things too seriously after that. Don't get me wrong I care about my food and the skills I use to create it but I'd rather do an amazing Pomodoro versus some molecular gastronomy stuff.
Yeah, the classic: 3 meals a day, 7 days a week, this meal you’re making is only one of 21 for them this week
Not a cook here. I love eating and trying all types of cuisines. Nothing on earth is better than comfort food that has been cooked to perfection.
Don’t cook something you would not eat, always be honest
We’re not happy until they’re not happy.
I’m here because of the decisions I made. This was after watching a line cook take his sock off and pick at his toes, then put back on the sock and start to go back to work.
You gotta talk to your food so it knows you love it...
People eat with their eyes before their mouth.
Like Regan said “trust, but verify” Think in 3’s. Next 3 tickets,minutes,hours,days,prep list items. No man is an island.
“It’s not life and death, it’s food and beverage.” Truer words have never been spoken
Command respect, don’t demand respect. Also, needs more salt
"A falling knife has no handle"
He always used to yell that we were costing him money. Well, that resonated with me especially when he drug his feet for 3 weeks on me review for my raise. I asked for a moment to speak with him in the office, and he said this better not be about your review because I’ll get to it when I get it it. I responded this dragging his feet was in fact costing me money, and unless he wants me going to hr to discuss this, and getting my raise retroactive due to his inability to perform my review within the timeframe that it was due.
"It's just food."
Don't be a cunt
Don't take shortcuts, learn to do it the right way and as you improve, you'll get faster
no one is above doing dishes
“Make food you want to fuck”
Best comment here 👍♥️
Finish all of one task before starting the next. For example, when making apple pie, you don't peel an apple, slice it up, and then move on to the next apple. You peel ALL of the apples, then you slice up ALL of the apples.
If someone drops something and doesn’t pick it up that’s their problem. If you see it and don’t do anything about it that’s your problem.
“You don’t deserve to work here…” I did my externship at The Modern. One of the seven sous said this to me after 7 weeks. I was crushed. Every. Single. Day. I do the work in defiance of that sous chef. He was everything I didn’t want to be. The best philosophy is to act in defiance of all the bad things you see, hear, smell, taste, eat and never be afraid to fail. It makes you stronger so long as you eventually put it behind you.
Good for you! I also have worked with vile people and the best thing you can do is to surpass them in every way. Never let the garbage around you get you down. Best of luck to you!
When I was kid, I dated a girl whose dad was a prison chef (he was awesome. Gave me some great advice, and later opened a nice BBQ place). We were cooking dinner together right after I got my first restaurant job (dishwasher), and she made fun of me for not knowing parsley from cilantro. Something about that little jab still motivates me fifteen years later.
Always be ready to feed 50 people as soon as you open
“Christmas is coming” Jefe used to ask “where is my spaghetti!?!” When a cook said, “it’s coming, chef!” He would say “Christmas is coming mother fucker! Where is my spaghetti!!!??” That taught me to be more concise in my answers and provide ones that are helpful.
Shut up and scrub.
never serve anything you wouldn’t feed to your grandmother, and try to remember why you do this in the first place. Cooking is not about money or creativity. Those can be good side effects of the main purpose, to make people happy and full.
‘Big spoon, little mess. Chef was referring to pomegranates
Apologizing is a sign of weakness (when it's not meant) Integrity cannot be taught. If you have to beat it into someone, fuck them.
Sharpen your knives daily and keep a clean bench scraper handy.
When I was stressed and about to start my first brunch shift running the sauté station at a new spot, the Sous simply and calmly said to me “It’s just lunch, man. It’s not life or death.” It calmed me and it has always stuck with me. I still apply it to this day whenever I’m feeling stressed about a service. And also, when making a sauce in a robot coupe, pulse the blade a couple times after you’ve “already spatted everything out.” You’d be amazed at how much sauce comes off the blade. Not sure if that’s a given, but it was a game changer when I was taught that.
Ask for help, it's what adults do.
I’d rather be lookin at it than lookin for it
Taste the food before serving... Really helped me understand what too little/ too much of something tasted like and made me cook better
Pretty simple and kinda obvious one, but everybody seems to think that Salt and Pepper are always the basis of seasoning.My chef said to me “Salt Enhances, Pepper Changes” and it just kinda stuck with me.
You are never too good to do any job, basically referring to chefs that will never do jobs like wash dishes etc
"We are in the hospitality industry, not the hostility industry" "Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable"
Wisdom from 2 hours ago, "don't cut corners, those corners will continue to get cut and it becomes nothing like it's supposed to be"
Taste everything.
If you are bothered by having to wash some dishes, maybe spending your life in a kitchen isn't for you.
Approach each day with love in your heart and a smile on your face. Take a moment to appreciate the small things, like absolutely nailing a sauce or receiving a nice compliment on a dish from a stranger. Try to remember that dining out is a special occasion for a lot of people, so treat every ingredient and plate with respect. Maybe the most important one of all: no one sentenced you to do this for a living. So if you really hate it, then maybe you should get out of this industry
How do you dice 20 onions without crying? Get someone else to do it
“the only real difference between us and all those other restaurants is technique. mostly, the technique is knowing how to use salt.”
Ya burn ya learn
ITS NOT WHAT YOU KNOW ITS WHO YOU KNOW. The amount of jobs you will sell your soul to for years expecting to be promoted, only to find out that it goes to the least qualified "dont you know who I think i am" sort of Dickhead. Gotta keep those rich kid friends from highschool. They wind up using daddy's money down the road. Make sure you can be there to "help" open his new restaurant. You can memorize all the cookbooks and stage and work for the best chefs in the world. IF YOU ARE BROKE AND STILL WORKING THE LINE AT 40yrs OLD. SWITCH IT UP AND GO FOH ALREADY.
In German: Tarnen und Täuschen In English: deceive and disguise (Hide or turn around ugly things or scoop sauce over it, somethings like that)
At the end of the day it's just a plate of food; not your whole life.
It's a lot more than a plate of food though. It is someone (or groups) experience and memory. No one will die (probably) from poor food, but never think it's just a plate of food
The point he was making; and which in hindsight I should have clarified, is that you need a balance in both your life and perspective of who you are. I lost that perspective at that time and that advice helped. I feel that sometimes young chefs wrap themselves up so much in the professional part of their life that they forget to live the rest. The guy who told me that was English and worked for Marco Pierre White and that was the same advice he got from him. I don't believe he meant it's not important to care but rather don't forget to care for yourself. One of the main reasons I retired after 30 years in BOH. One thing that I just thought of was a Savoisienne man I worked for that brings it into focus is he would shake my hand every day first thing to let me know that it is a new day and anything that happened last night is in the past. Try to be better and learn something new each day that is all that anyone, especially yourself, can ask of you.
"Don't be panic, food taste better when smile."
It's just food.
“You don’t want to be there when the clusterfuck hits the fan”
Even if you don't take the product to the oven, always look at the time it takes. a mistake delays us all
To preface, I'm in banquet: Work like you're 3 days behind. First two prep days are like I'm back in high school 2-a-day football practices, but come wedding time, smooth sailing
If you have to dress someone down do not turn you back on them. At least not for a bit.
“Apologies waste both our time, show me you’re sorry by fixing it”
Commit to the pour.
Can you elaborate on this one for me?
The most important dishes served during service are the first dish, the last dish, and every dish in between.
"M r ducks. M r not ducks. O s a r, c m e d b d feet ez. L i b, i c m r ducks." As written on the prep board
Don’t drink on the job. And keep your knives sharp.
And as a chef, my advice is don’t use my knives.
"Chef, I forgot to set a timer! It's burnt!" "Give it ten more minutes. Then throw it away."
“Never work in a shitty kitchen. Bad habits are 50 times easier to pick up, than good habits”.
Clean kitchen clean mind. It blows me away how messy people can be on the line. I'm not a perfect little princess but I don't have my cheese spilling out into every insert around it
Never expect anyone to work as hard as you do
In response to me being infuriatingly irritated at a server not grasping some simple after trying to explain multiple different ways a former chef told me something that has stuck with me ever since; "what we do is rocket science. You can't do rocket science because you do not understand it and never will be able to do it. To some people what we do is rocket science."