by Chris Bruno
With the popularity of reality television shows such as Iron Chef, Master Chef, and Hell’s Kitchen, the general public possesses a better understanding than ever of the work that goes into being a chef and the pressure that often accompanies it. Less obvious is the variety of chef positions available. Read about the duties of different types of chefs below.
Cooks, Restaurant CareerSearch.com
Executive chef, head chef, chef de cuisine - This is the top dog, the individual responsible for everything in the kitchen, including food preparation and quality, cooking, menu planning, supplies, and cost control. This chef also directs the hiring and training of kitchen staff.
Sous chef - The executive chef’s assistant, the sous chef often assumes the responsibility of training other chefs, plans menus, orders supplies, and fills any other necessary duties in the absence of the executive chef.
Pastry chef - Among the most well-appreciated of chefs, the pastry chef plans, prepares, and styles pastries and breads. This chef typically holds responsibility for pairing desserts with particular wines and coffees and orders supplies related to the specialty.
Chef de partie - Specialty chefs employed in larger restaurants, chefs de partie cover one particular station or specialty. These specialties include the saucier, who creates sautéed foods and their sauces; the grillardin, who prepares grilled items; and the entremetier, who serves as the vegetable chef.
Garde manager - This chef directs the presentation of all cold foods, including meats, salads, hors d’ouevres, patés, cheeses, and canapés. Often responsible for buffet table presentation, the garde manager is usually also accountable for cold sauces, including dressings, vinaigrettes, relishes, chutneys, and pickles.
Other Chefs - Pastry chefs can specialize in a particular item like cakes, and specialty chefs may concentrate on fish, frying, butchering, or other foods and skills. Chefs of all kinds work not only at restaurants, but also at corporate and specialty venues such as resorts, mansions, and the White House.
—
About the Author:
A graduate of Johnson & Wales University, chef Chris Bruno possesses more than 20 years of experience in the culinary industry, including working as Head Chef and proprietor of Fiddler’s Restaurant and Chris’s American Restaurant in the Danbury, Connecticut, area.
by Chris Bruno
As a chef who received training in the classical French technique, I appreciate the enormous influence of Georges Auguste Escoffier. Born in 1846 in the Provence region of France, the young Escoffier moved to Nice at age 13 to learn the trade at his uncle’s restaurant. By the age of 19, he had become so proficient in restaurant management that he received an invitation to join the fashionable Le Petit Moulin Rouge in Paris. When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, Escoffier enlisted as Chef de Cuisine for the French army, where he experimented with techniques for preserving perishable foods. In 1884, several years after opening his first restaurant, Escoffier and his wife, Delphine, relocated to the city of Monte Carlo, where he met Cesar Ritz. With Escoffier as Head of Restaurant Services and Ritz as General Manager, the pair began collaborating at the Savoy Hotel in London before establishing the wildly successful Grand Hotel in Rome, the Hotel Ritz in Paris, and the Carlton in London, among others. As the chef to some of the biggest stars of his time, Escoffier gained widespread acclaim for innovative dishes such as Peach Melba, which he created for the opera singer Nellie Melba. Today, Escoffier may be best known for his integral role in the development of modern French cuisine. In addition to streamlining and modernizing the elaborate menus of traditional haute cuisine, Escoffier introduced the brigade system, which employed several Chefs de Partie to ensure that his kitchens ran smoothly, implementing a system of discipline and sobriety that elevated cooking as a profession. As the first chef to receive the Legion of Honor, Escoffier left a lasting impact that can still be felt today; after more than a century, his 1903 Le Guide Culinaire still stands as one of the authoritative texts of French cuisine.
An accomplished restaurateur with more than 20 years of experience in the field, Chris Bruno founded Chris’s American Restaurant in 1990. As the head chef and owner of the Brookfield, Connecticut-based restaurant, Chris Bruno operated the highest grossing restaurant in Connecticut for several years. After Chris Bruno purchased Chris’s American Restaurant at age 24 and ran it for nearly 20 years, the restaurant underwent a makeover and became 189 Sports Café.
189 Sports Café is a sports bar and restaurant that features 18 television screens in the bar area and another eight screens scattered throughout the restaurant. In addition to the one-of-a-kind sports viewing experience 189 Sports Café offers tasty, casual food and 12 different beers on tap.
Well-known for its gourmet hamburgers, 189 Sports Café proudly serves a variety of specialty burgers and other entrees. For the adventurous eater, 189 Sports Café offers the “pounder pounder.” This giant hamburger, which features a two-pound beef patty with sautéed onions, bacon, pickles, lettuce, mayo, and cheese, is served with a “big enough” roll and fries. If a customer successfully finishes the burger within 30 minutes, he or she receives a free 189 Sports Café “simple” burger within two weeks’ time. In addition to the pounder pounder, 189 Sports Café offers a simple eight-ounce burger, a Coca-Cola glazed burger called “the real thing,” and a Kobe beef burger garnished with caramelized onions.
For people looking for a way to socialize after a long day of work, 189 Sports Café offers a number of happy hour specials. Between 4 and 7 p.m., the bar at 189 Sports Café serves $2 Bud and Coors Light, $3.50 well drinks, and house wines for $5. In addition to the drink specials during happy hour, bar patrons can order nachos, wings, and chicken tenders for $5 each.
by Chris Bruno
I have worked my entire career in the restaurant business, starting as a dishwasher and working my way up to Line Cook, Sous-Chef, and then Executive Chef before opening my own establishment, Fiddler’s Restaurant, in Brookfield, Connecticut, in 1990. After 13 years, we remodeled and renamed it Chris’s American Restaurant. Many people are unaware of the various types of kitchen staff required to make a restaurant run. In this article, I provide a brief description of the major positions in the kitchen hierarchy. The cold station chef or chef de garde mange ranks at the bottom of the kitchen hierarchy. Generally, this person assembles cold plates that do not need to be cooked, such as salads. Sometimes, he or she also assembles desserts if the restaurant lacks a pastry line. Line cooks, next up in the hierarchy, do most of the actual cooking in a given restaurant. Line cooks generally occupy a single station at once, and the staff at each station holds responsibility for a technique or a type of food. Thus, one line cook will work the grill while another prepares sauces, or the manager may assign a line cook to ready fish dishes, meat entrees, or vegetarian main plates. Eventually, most line cooks work every station before their bosses promote them to sous-chef positions. The pastry chef operates separately from the rest of the kitchen staff and does not move up in rank like the line cooks or others. This is because pastry-making is a separate skill set and requires different kinds of equipment. In addition, in the past, the rest of the kitchen crew may have felt biases against the pastry chef, as this used to be considered a female position. Although times have changed, the traditional rivalry between pastry and entrée chefs remains. In most restaurants, the sous-chef comes next in the hierarchy, although larger restaurants often employ an expediter. The expediter essentially acts as a coordinator: He or she ensures that all dishes are completed at the right time and arrive to the table together and at the proper temperature. In smaller restaurants, the sous-chef fulfills the duties of the expediter. In addition, the sous-chef prepares daily specials, ensures the restaurant contains proper provisions, oversees the staff, and performs other tasks as needed. In most restaurants, the chef de cuisine position becomes the next and final step of the hierarchy. This person develops the menu and represents the restaurant in the public arena. In larger establishments, the chef de cuisine will also employ an executive chef, whose duties include hiring and firing, taking care of administrative duties, interacting with guests, and ensuring that the menu meets the standards of the proprietors. In smaller restaurants, the chef de cuisine fulfills the duties of an executive chef.
Chris's American Restaurant - Qapacity