Escoffier didn't have to put up with this...

"I am a hotel chef."

That was a big admission for me.  And a generalization based upon looking at my resume, (all generalizations are false by the way.)  For the sake of this argument, I will accept the label.

I have spent 11 of my 17 years as an Executive Chef in hotels, so I guess it is correct: I.  Am.  A.  Hotel.  Chef.  "But, why is this such a 'big admission' for you?" you may ask.  Well...I have always fought against labels and being pigeon-holed as this or that; as a musician/fan of music I don't like labels...so why would I want to be labeled as chef?  There are some who believe that chefs that work in hotels are less talented, don't really cook, and if they were "really that good" they would have a restaurant of their own.

More disconcerting, is the reaction amongst other hospitality professionals and kitchen colleagues.  I have gone into job interviews for a "Restaurant Chef" only to be sneered at when the interviewer looks at the resume to only see hotels...despite the fact that in a hotel I run multiple restaurants AND a banquet business AND catering AND room service...  Anthony Bourdain has called Hotel Chefs, "sell outs" who cook "schlock food."  And while there are definitely those chefs in hotels, I take umbrage to Mr. Bourdain's assertion, and the general perception of Hotel Chefs.  AND here is why:



1)  It is almost universally acknowledged that Auguste Escoffier, building upon the work of Chef Marie-Antoine Careme, is the Grandfather of Modern Cuisine as we know it.  He was referred to as the "king of chefs, chef of kings."  The Certified Master Chef Test uses the recipes from Escoffier as the basis of its judging criteria.  Almost every kitchen office has a copy of his Le Guide Culinaire.  Odd then, that chefs tend to forget that he teamed up with Cesar Ritz, (you may have heard of the Ritz Hotel in Paris...or the Ritz-Carlton...), the most successful hotelier of the era to become the preeminent chef, possibly of all.  Time.  And even though it is a fact oft overlooked, Escoffier was a Hotel Chef!

2)  I realize that a lot of chefs who have no hotel experience, may look down upon a Hotel Chef as "playing it safe" while they are running a restaurant "without a net."  Which is fair.  Hotels have the "luxury" of having room revenue to offset the costs of the entire hotel; hotel food and beverage operations are often subsidized, and looked at as amenities/loss leaders and not a profit center.  A freestanding restaurant, if lucky, will cover all of their costs with their Sunday through Friday sales with all of their Saturday sales being profit.  Many are not that lucky...

However, as a "restaurant chef" there is a much higher reward to accompany the much higher risk.  If you are a chef in a restaurant and you are a great "Culinary Artist" or are doing something of note, people will.  Take.  Notice.  There is more media attention...which leads to more covers...which leads to more profits...which leads to more and more and more...In a hotel, "high praise" is, "This doesn't taste like hotel food."  Regardless of how innovative or delicious your cooking is, the only media coverage you can expect is from trade magazines.  AND if you are truly awesome and worthy of a national spotlight, the Corporate Chef of your hotel company will swoop in for the photoshoot...while you toil away in awesomeness and anonymity.

3)There are actually working Executive Chefs that work in hotels!

Seems obvious.

There are many Executive Chefs that follow the somewhat antiquated-traditional model of the Executive Chef who do not cook for a living anymore.  They are the chefs that sit in an office, looking out the office window at the kitchen operations.  They embrace the Executive part of their title more than the Chef part..."Clipboard Chefs," (labeled as such because they are more apt to be found with a clipboard in their hands instead of a knife or food); it is the stereotype that I fight against everyday.

In the same vein of the somewhat "new school of thought" which sees hoteliers treating their restaurants as Restaurants in a Hotel instead of the staid model of Hotel Restaurants, I consider myself a Chef that works in a hotel more than I would say I am a Hotel Chef.  Oh, sure...I can still rock the Hotel Chef paperwork with the best of culinary administrators.  And I can multi-task and execute a wedding for 250 people while feeding another 250 people in another dining room.

I just choose to be hands-on.  I choose to cook.  I would rather help you instead of delegating the task of helping you to someone else.  I would rather work on one dish all day until it was "perfect," or I was convinced that it wouldn't work, instead of doing paperwork.  I can work your dinner line and still bring in a targeted COGS and write my budget for next year.  I guess you could say, that I am a Restaurant Chef, trapped in a Hotel Chef's career path.

4) Although I disagree with the general perception, I can see how we may be viewed as "sell outs" or "prima donnas."

Yes, by-in-large, being employed in a hotel affords me things that my restaurant brethren are not: health insurance, 401k's, paid time off, vacation pay, travel discounts, etc...  It is also easier for a hotel chef to budget for new equipment in the next year as part of "Capital Improvements".  In a restaurant, a bad week can mean the difference between buying tongs for the cooks, or requiring them to buy their own!

There are some of us who do not take advantage of our situation, and run our kitchens like an independent restaurant with our name on the door, (i.e., we are not spendthrifts).


5)  I really care about where my food comes from, too.  This has always been another knock on the Hotel Chef:  "Hotels get all of their food out of a box/off of the back of a tractor trailer instead of out of a garden/off the farm."

Going "farm-to-table" in a hotel can be a challenge.  It is difficult to serve locally raised beef steaks for 250 when 1 cow may only provide enough of said steaks for 50 people.  The successful chef does not ask the farmer to scale up his production to suit his/her needs; the chef will scale his menu to the production availability of the farmer.

6)  If running a Hotel Restaurant/Restaurant in a Hotel is such a sell out move, why do more and more successful Celebrity Chef/Restaurateurs keep opening restaurants in hotels?

7)  I don't give a rat's ass where you have worked!  If you are talented, I will call you "Chef."

And maybe I have my mentors to blame for that attitude...  I did my apprenticeship in a private club in upstate NY; versatility was the key to success in that situation:

Learn how to do charcuterie, it is a dying art. (That was the way the wind was blowing then...fortunately there has been a resurgence as of late, part of the nose-to-tail movement).  Learn how to carve ice...work with chocolate...do pastries...pull sugar...I was trained in an atmosphere where cooking a hot dog was just as important as cooking foie gras!  Know how to work the line, run a banquet, pack for a cater-out, cost out a recipe, write a schedule, place an order, budget...these are all essential building blocks, the DNA, of being a chef; it matters not whether you are in a restaurant, hotel, corporate cafe, diner, or hot dog cart!



And maybe it was the last point that is the cause of my ire; the reason for my reticence to be labeled as a certain kind of chef.  The venue should not matter one iota.  I am proud to be a Chef.  I am happy that I learned how to knead bread, temper chocolate, carve ice...how to be a complete chef.  I will put forward the same passion and drive to succeed no matter where I choose to ply my trade.  If you are going to treat me differently because I work here, and not there...then that is on you, (and if you are a potential employer who says I can't work in your industry segment because my experience is in another industry segment, I say to you, "what is this?  Montagues versus the Capulets?")  And if you really need to label me, just call me "Chef."