A Day in the Life of a Chef

A peek behind the kitchen Door

It’s now been over a month since I’ve been back in a professional kitchen.

Many of you have messaged me asking what’s it like to be back cooking in a commercial setting and also questions about being a Westerner relocating to Asia.

Will go more in depth on the relocation process at a later date but for today I invite you into my kitchen to see what a typical day looks like for a professional chef.

Daily Routine

9-10am:

Arrive in the kitchen. Check in one the morning cooks, preppers and dishwashers. I make it a point to go to each person individually and tell them “good morning”.

After morning greetings I go and inspect the orders and check all invoices to make sure products and quantities match as well as double checking for quality. If produce, proteins and other items aren’t up to snuff I need to contact supplier and issue an exchange (or return, and hit up another supplier). This sets the tone for the entire day because there is nothing worse then being in a service or in hte middle of prep and finding unwelcomed surprises.

10-11:30am

This is when I begin certain prep tasks that I prefer to handle myself. Handling high dollar protein items, fish fabrication and meat butchery. I will also go and help prep items on certain stations to stay connected with the pre cooks and also keep my basic knife skills honed in (pun intended). I’ve always been a hands on chef so prep work and cooking have always been my favorite parts of the job.

11:30am-12pm

This is when i do line checks. I go to every station and taste sauces, check prepped protein and produce items for freshness. This is also called “mise en place checks”, which means everything in it’s place.

This is another important part of the day.

When lunch service starts and things get busy, that’s not the time to find out you have a low count on a popular item, a sauce is wrong or a protein isn’t servable.

12-3pm

Lunch Service. As the head chef I man the “pass” as it’s called. This is where all items come to be plated or finished by myself. Any food issues that might occur in the dining room fall on my shoulders, so you can see now why the previous morning activities are so important. No one blames the line cook… the final plate passes the head chef, full stop.

Think of the pass as the air traffic control center of the kitchen. My job is to coordinate the pickups from all the different stations to come out simultaneously to arrive at each table.

It’s unacceptable in my environment for half a tables plates to go out and have a 5 minute lag time before the rest goes out.

So having a keen eye to watch every station, what each cook is preparing and picking up… you could also liken it to a symphony conductor.

During lunch service I still taste elements that go on the plate before sending out. As a head chef you know that (for example) the saute cook usually under seasons his proteins or vegetables so you need to watch them for proper seasoning.

The saucier tends to over-reduce certain sauces so you have to stay up on making sure the sauces aren’t too heavy and concentrated.

You get the idea

3-3:30pm

Station breakdowns, cleaning and prep lists are made for the incoming night cooks.

The entire kitchen and stations are broken down, cleaned and reset for dinner service.

3:30-4:30pm

I try to take a break. Grabbing a tea or cofee, or hitting up a ramen or dumpling spot for a quick bite to grab some energy for dinner service. (It’s normally tea or coffee though 😂).

4:30-5pm

Back in the kitchen, checking in on the PM cooks stations. A lot of this is following up with people to make sure they’re doing what they need to be doing.

5pm

Briefing Time (also known as Preshift)

I take 5 mins to gather the cooks and let them know the reservation flow for the night. Some nights the rush comes early. Other nights it’s stready. Other times it’s slow to start and then you get pounded mid service and it’s a nonstop slog to finish.

Having the cooks knowing what the flow will be is a great help for mental readiness. This is also when any of the cooks can let me know of an emergency or unexpected low-count item.

5:05-5:30pm

I join the Front of House Briefing.

This is where I communicate to the Front of House (Managers, Captains, Bartenders, Sommeliers, Food runners) any specials for the day, pairing ideas, plates that we need to focus on and any low counts.

This is vital to keep the Back and Front of House aligned and on the same team.

5:30-6pm

Line checks, mise en place checks and hopefully a quick cappuccino followed by a soda water.

6pm

The show begins!

Dinner service is usually busier than lunch service so there is always a certain amount anticipation before seeing what unfolds for the night.

As at lunch, I’m manning the pass but usually dinner menu has more items and plates than the lunch menu so there’s more to watch, more to check and more to be prepared for.

Most people think that if a restaurant has 60 seats, and they walk in at 7pm with no reservation but there are empty tables… that they should be sat.

In most high end kitchens, there isn’t the man power or capacity to serve and feed all 60 people at once. Which is why seatings are spread out over the course of the evening to ensure the highest quality and best experience for the guest

(Don’t be the guy that goes into a restaurant and does the “well I see open tables, why can’t we have one of those”. Absolute amateur comment).

If all goes well, during lulls I’ll go into the dining room and approach certain tables. This is how you build rapport with guests and hopefully give them a reason to come back frequently.

Regular guests are like gold in an industry that is so competeitive with low profit margins.

10:30-11pm

Orders usually come in waves. Last orders run until this time, but sometimes the reservations finish earlier. Now the kitchen starts to pre-close and I start doing par and order counts for next day deliveries.

11-Midnight/12:30am

Now the cleaning begins and any emergency prep that needs to be done for the morning crew.

I can’t overstate how important cleaning is to me and having a clean kitchen. As the head chef I still get in there and enjoy cleaning on a daily basis. It’s actually funny to me since I’m a new arrival when a cook tells me “Chef, that won’t come clean… we’ve tried”… then I show them, by doing it for them.

Closeout

At this point I say goodbye to any remaining cooks, dishwashers, food runners, captains and FOH managers that will finish closing up the restaurant.

Just as I enter with a personal greeting, I go to everyone and give them a goodnight, “thank you for your help tonight” or in rare cases “great job” to team member who really crushed it.

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I will say this.

Being a chef in the service industry isnt’ for everyone

In fact, I’d say it’s not for most people.

The hours aren’t great. I left out most of the unglamorous parts about equipment breaking, long nights, early mornings when something goes wrong… It’s just a high stress environment.

The late Anthony Bourdain made a quote that was something like “the only way you do this long term is if you have a severe mental illness” 😂

For me… it got in my blood. I tried consulting and while it was fun in certain aspects for the first time in years I feel like I’m “home”… in a kitchen, in Asia, half way across the world loving life and still able to write, publish recipes and sling the best spices, yerba mate and coffee on the planet!

Drop any comments or questions below! See you soon with more recipes 🙌