What does it take to transition from cook to chef?
It isn’t automatic, you know. Just because you’ve been working hard, have cooked long hours in a professional kitchen, and maybe even graduated from culinary school doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll ever get to be a “chef.” Actually, I used to make fun of chefs when I was a young kitchen slave. It seemed weirdly hierarchical for all these hotshot cooks to be responding, “Yes, Chef!” to every order barked by some 26-year-old in a tomato- stained white jacket. As if the guy — or girl — were a general, an archbishop, or some other authoritative chieftain. Who was this titanic “chef” figure? Wasn’t he or she simply someone with a slightly better palate, a mildly more refined sense of presentation, or just more seniority on the line? Nope, I learned. Making the transition from just another cook on the brigade to a chef’s position — be it sous, chef de cuisine, or executive — is a matter of technical mastery, drive, discipline, leadership skills, an excellent palate, and a gift for creativity.
So how does a young cook know he or she has what it takes to move up the ladder? And how does a chef identify the “comers”?
After eight years at the East Coast Grill, Jason Lord is currently the head chef. He didn’t go to cooking school; he headed straight to the pots and pans. “I was shocked that I could make a living working in kitchens, making people happy,” he says. “How do you move up from cook to chef? It’s all about not being satisfied with your workload, wanting to do more, wanting to learn new skills. As a line cook, you start to want to have more input into what goes on the menu, what happens in the kitchen.”
In fact, in addition to all the work, becoming a chef is about leadership, Lord says. “Running a kitchen is a funny thing. You’ve got this funny ragtag group of people and you have to help them all learn to work together. As a chef, you size up every cook in the kitchen, see what they can accomplish, and figure out whether the other cooks respect them. You see the obvious stars, but you also have to watch for the diamonds in the rough, the ones who surprise you and work hard for you, and excel.
“Here’s the real key,” he adds. “Cooking is a stressful job. You’ve got to keep a clear head in constant and great chaos. To use a baseball analogy, chefs have to hit curve balls all day long. Showing leadership in the kitchen means adjusting on the fly, keeping your cool, and helping everyone else keep theirs.”
Jeremy Sewall is the chef-owner of Lineage, the pitch-perfect neighborhood bistro in Coolidge Corner. Sewall did go to the Culinary Institute of America, during which time he spent an entire year learning how to cut fish perfectly. “By far, this was the most intense year of my life,” Sewall says. “I was always very ambitious. Cutting fish was one of the many skills I needed to perfect in order to become a chef.”
Still, says Sewall, “I didn’t know when I was ready to move up. Other people knew.” His mentor at the famed White Barn Inn in Maine, where he worked after graduating from the CIA, saw Sewall’s promise, kicked his butt continuously, and encouraged the young cook to go to Europe. “‘Go work in some of the best kitchens in the world, and get the crap beat out of you for a year,’ he told me.”
So at 23, Sewall sold his car and his belongings and went to work in some of the most abusive kitchens in the world. And he survived. “Once I overcooked a steak and the chef punched me in the forehead. I fell on the floor. But then I just put my head down and got through the night. It did make me stronger,” remembers Sewall with surprising fondness. “Mental toughness is a big part of being a chef. You’ve got to be able to manage the cooking skills, watch the food and the flavors, and be able to deal with a range of personalities — from CEO guests to ex-con dishwashers — on a daily basis. Too many young cooks want too much, too fast. A year or two on the line, and they want to be the sous-chef. They think it’s a TV chef world. It isn’t. Making the transition from cook to chef is about developing a deep resume of basic culinary skills and keeping your head in your work. Here’s my advice to ambitious young cooks — it’s the same advice that was given to me. Slow down. Learn the basics: how to butcher a round fish, make a hollandaise, roast a really good chicken. Don’t race to the top; the top is wobbly without a good foundation of skills. And then worry about moving on.”
Jody Adams, chef-owner of Rialto, wasn’t ready to move on when her then-boss, Gordon Hamersley, gave her the nudge. “He told me that there was a chef position opening up at Michela’s and I should apply,” Adams remembers. “I’d been working for him for eight years at that point, and I felt I had a home at Hamersley’s. Interviewing for the chef position was a huge step for me. I was lucky that Michela Larson took a chance on me.
“But it was a shock to become a chef,” she continues. “As a line cook, you have this unbelievable luxury of thinking that what you are doing is the most important thing in the world — working with these beautiful ingredients, one plate at a time. As a chef, you have a dozen plates spinning in the air. As in any profession, you take the next step not because you are good at the next job, but because you are good at the job you are leaving behind. I went into mourning when I moved from lead cook to chef, because I couldn’t be on the line any more.”
So how do you know when a cook is ready to move on? Adams says that if she sees a cook reaching beyond himself to a place where he can see a bigger picture, she knows he can make the transition. She thinks of Andrew Hebert, a newly promoted sous chef in her kitchen. “You could tell he was ready, that the other cooks respected him and he respected them. His food was beautiful, and he was a very good teacher. He instinctively looked out for other cooks. And then he went from a line cook, cooking every day and making beautiful plates, to butchering ducks almost full time. That’s the essence of the chef’s job: creating the foundation for other people to succeed.”
Louisa Kasdon can be reached at food@stuffatnight.com.
