A while ago, my wife and I were eating at one of the restaurants of the best hotel in town. There had been much in the papers about the hotel’s new executive chef, recently in from Manhattan. We innocently mentioned to our waiter that we hadn’t been to the restaurant in a while, and we understood they had a new chef. He quickly informed us that they had the same chef they’d had for years. He then said, “We have a new Executive chef”, in a tone that, for a high-class smoothy like him, was the equivalent of spitting on the ground. We dropped the subject, and went back to ordering. (But did note that the menu had obviously changed, and in our opinion improved, since the last time we’d eaten there.)
Then, we started watching reruns of Hell’s Kitchen, One of the contestants was an executive chef, and was obviously proud of it. Gordon Ramsay, on the other hand, was obviously out to get him, and said something along the lines of “Chris is an executive chef, which means he’s been sitting on his arse for ten years.”
Ok – I’m getting the impression that the working stiff type people in the kitchen don’t care much for executive chefs. However, they obviously get hired for a reason. What do they do? And why the tension, or am I just over-generalizing?
My understanding (and I could be entirely wrong) is that the executive chef is the person who figures out the menu, based on what’s popular, complimentary flavors, cost, what kind of clientele they want to draw, etc., but doesn’t actually do the cooking. They are hands-off chefs who are more about management than actual creation of the meals.
I think Kalhoun has it. The people who are actually in the restaurant kitchen making YOUR meal are line chefs or, in fancier circles, sous chefs.
The executive chef (who may well be the owner) is the guy who comes up with the plan, the meals that will be served, the recipes that will be followed, etc. He hires other people to cook the meals he’s devised.
I mean, if you go to a famous restaurant like Chez Panisse or NOLA, you don’t think Alice Waters or Emeril Lagasse is in the kitchen whipping up YOUR plate, do you?
The executive chef MAY be in the kitchen constantly, overseeing everything… or he/she may be pretty hands-off after things seem to be going smoothly.
Well, no, but on the other hand, I know Gordon Ramsay isn’t in all his restaurants cooking all the time, but he still seems to think Executive Chef =lazy asshole. I’m thinking that there’s some extra element that is well-known in the restaurant industry, but isn’t quite as obvious from the outside.
Theres no formal criteria for what is and what is not an executive chef so anyone can theoretically take on that label. However, it’s generally agreed that an executive chef is in charge of several restuarants and does little or no active cooking in any of them. Instead, they are in charge of the overall vision and direction of the group of restaurants.
I think part of the reason Ramsey was so dismissive of the “Executive Chef” on Hells Kitchen was because it’s an incredible sign of arrogance and delusion to call yourself that if you don’t have the credentials to back it up. It would be like Bob of Bob’s grocery store referring to himself as the CEO. Technically, it’s true but it’s not common practise.
Well, I’m sure every case is different, but it’s entirely POSSIBLE to be an executive chef without doing much. Sure, you have to work extremely hard to get a restaurant going, and in the early days, an executive chef puts in long hours and a lot of sweat. But after some years, if a restaurant becomes famous and successful (big ifs, since most restaurants don’tr survive very long) it’s POSSIBLE for a famous chef to “sit on his ass” and do nothing except collect money.
If Ramsay was dismissive of a guy calling himself an executive chef, it MAY be because
He himself knows a lot of famous chefs who haven’t done any REAL cooking and haven’t seen the inside of a real kitchen in ages. or…
The guy who called himself an “Executive chef” was, after all, a relative nobody. Yes, he had some real restaurant experience, and he may even have held the title “Executive chef” at a small restaurant, but Ramsay may have wanted to let him know “You’re in the big leagues now, and that title you earned at some dinky restaurant doesn’t impress me a bit.”
In the Hell’s Kitchen series in question, the Executive Chef gets the boot because he keeps saying he’s so marvelous but he doesn’t actually deliver the goods.