The executive chef plans the menu of the restaurant, and adds and/or subtracts from the menu as he sees fit. This means a lot of research done outside the kitchen, looking at trends in the market — what’s current, what’s classic, what people are looking for. While executive chefs must know how to cook, they are required more to develop the business, to plan the budget of the kitchen, and to hire, train, and supervise the kitchen staff.
Definitely, an executive chef does a lot of managerial work, which is why proper and adequate training is key and it takes several years of work experience to achieve the executive chef position. It is possible to become a chef even without a high school diploma, but definitely much easier with some culinary school attendance. Vocational and trade schools, and colleges offer three to four course programs of both the lecture and practical sort, where students not only understand cooking theories and learn about world cuisines, they also get to do actual cooking. Formal schooling also provides such practicalities that every executive chef should know, such as shopping for and selection of food, the accompanying cost control, food handling, sanitation, waste minimization, and others.
If you want an executive chef position, however, it’s the longer, more elaborate culinary course that you should take into consideration. Universities and professional associations offer courses that also tackle managerial duties. Students are not only made to learn supervisory work, but financial analysis, accounting, and budgeting as well. An executive chef job entails assuring the practicality of a particular dish. It may be scrumptious, but if it costs too much to make, it will mean the menu price will be high as well, and perhaps not a favorite among your restaurant clientele. Determining cost control, a must in an executive chef position, is often fine tuned in an advanced chef course.
Executive chefs normally start from the very bottom, as trainees or aides hired straight out of culinary schools or the minimum training programs. Trainees are usually offered a salary, usually only ten percent of an executive chef salary. After “training,” an aide becomes a commis chef, doing small tasks such as preparing food, slicing meat, peeling vegetables, among others. After two years as a commis chef, you may be promoted to become an actual station chef, a chef de partie or a line cook. In Europe, commis chefs take longer to get promoted because of the several levels of commis chef that they must pass first, often taking four years. In the kitchen, a chef de partie cooks within his assigned station and is assisted by the commis chefs.
After six or seven years as a station chef, advancement to the sous chef position is possible. A sous chef is almost as important as the executive chef because while the executive chef is out doing market and trend research and financial management, the sous chef is in charge of the kitchen. Sometimes, a distinction is made between a chef de cuisine and an executive chef job. While the job description is more or less the same, a chef de cuisine will be in charge of a small café or restaurant, whereas an executive chef will handle much larger establishments.
These different establishments are all in need of the executive chefs. The executive chef salary is often determined according to the kind of business being run. An executive chef with little managerial experience may expect a starting salary of $36,500 per year, increasing through the years. The highest paid executive chefs receive up to $58,700. Fine dining restaurants and five star hotels may offer this much to their experienced executive chefs, while government offices on a federal level, non-government organizations, and hospitals may offer slightly lower executive chef salaries. Government offices on the state and local levels will pay executive chef salary of only $48,000.
Executive chefs who run their own restaurants or catering services make only around $51,400, while those working in restaurant franchises earn around $50,640. Executive chefs working in universities are paid $51,000, while those in lower school levels make around $45,000.
Executive chef jobs do pay well and, aside from having a lot of creative freedom and daily challenges, have their share of glamour as well. However, to be an executive chef means certain sacrifices are to be made; you have to work long, mostly tiring hours, there is little concession to error, and you will end up celebrating holidays in the kitchen. However, most executive chefs will testify that all the sacrifices are worth the rewards.
Executive chef positions and chef positions in general, have a very healthy job outlook. As the economy begins to improve, allowing a higher rate of pay increases for the majority of the population, and affording more leisure time in the process, there will be more people wanting to dine out or take vacations. This will in turn, benefit restaurant and hotel chefs.
Surveys show that many trainees leave their positions for other jobs, or to go back to schools for adequate chef job training, leaving a lot of positions open for new trainees. In a similar vein, chefs in their current executive chef positions may also branch out to higher paying positions, such as food and beverage management in hotels, or full-time restaurant management, and/or ownership. In the case of the latter, it is most likely that they’ll be hiring executive chefs of their own.
