Types of Chefs: What Part of the Kitchen Would You Want to Be In?

Cooking and food are two things that a lot of people love. Being able to create sumptuous dishes and having people enjoy what you concoct is a joy in itself for some. For others, it is actually a way of life.

Knowing how to cook and sharing that kind of skill with others does not automatically make one a chef, although a lot of those who do cook and serve people these dishes that they create do find themselves being called “chef”.

To become a real chef, one has to undergo training and to prepare food professionally for others afterwards. Training may come from one of the top culinary arts schools in the US or from chef schools near you.

Training to become a Chef

When you decide to become a chef and choose a culinary arts school to go to, the first thing you will need to know is what different kinds of chefs you can become and what these different chefs do. When you enroll in one of the many culinary arts schools found in the country, you will notice that some of the culinary degrees they have either focus on baking and pastry arts or on culinary arts.

Of course, if you choose a baking and pastry arts program at any of these culinary arts schools, you will be focusing on pastries and baking, as the name implies. In fact, one of the chefs in the kitchen is indeed called the pastry chef and that person is in charge of the breads, pastries and desserts of that particular kitchen.

Different Chef Titles and What They Imply

The kitchen is ruled by what is called a “brigade system” and this system puts a person in a particular post due to his or her strengths. For example, if you are an expert at sauces then you will likely become the saucier. Each station and position comes with responsibilities that others in the kitchen depend on. This system makes a kitchen run like a well-oiled machine and to keep it as such, different chefs are needed for each post.

If you are wondering what kind of chef you can become when you graduate from any of the culinary degrees that you find in a culinary institute, here are some of the titles that you may one day earn and the responsibilities that come with each one:

• Chef de Cuisine or Executive Chef – this is the top spot in the kitchen and is considered the boss of the establishment. This position takes more than just years of training at a culinary institute and is only given to the most deserving of all chefs. This is because of the fact that the Executive chef takes care of the restaurant’s entire menu, makes sure that the kitchen runs smoothly and oversees the creation of new items to be served to the restaurant’s patrons.
• Sous Chef – also referred to as the right hand man of the executive chef, a sous chef is in charge of a lot of things as well. There can actually be more than one sous chef in a kitchen, depending on the size of the restaurant and the number of people working in the kitchen itself.

Since a sous chef is in charge of taking care of certain dishes assigned to them by the executive chef, they take charge of putting these dishes together. They have to make sure that every person who contributes to such a dish does what they are supposed to do and that the dish is put together perfectly every single time.

• Chef de Partie – also called a line cook or a station chef, a chef de partie takes charge of one part of the kitchen’s production system. There are a few different station chefs that need to be employed by restaurants, some with more people than others, depending on the size of the operation. A pastry chef is one of the people in this category and is in charge of pastries and desserts. Here are a few more of the other station-chef titles to be found in most kitchens:
• Saute Chef or Saucier – this person is in charge of the sauces and other sautéed items in the menu.
• Roast/Meat Chef or Rotisseur - this is the chef in charge of the braised and roasted meats in the kitchen.
• Fish Chef or Poissonnier – as the name suggests, this person takes care of all the fish dishes in the kitchen. This chef is also in charge of butchering and cleaning all the fish that comes in fresh every day to the kitchen they are working for.
• Fry Chef or Friturier – when a kitchen has a menu that carries a huge number of fried items on them, it is necessary to have someone in charge of frying and this is the fry chef.
• Grill Chef or Grillardin – this person mans the grill and takes care of all the items that need to be cooked on it. This position, along with the position of fry chef, can be combined with the rotisseur post.
• Vegetable Chef or Entremetier – this post can be divided into two, one called a potager and one called a legumier. The former handles soups and pastas while the latter handles vegetables. Since these dishes often come in as either starter courses or appetizers and are sometimes not too taxing to prepare, some kitchens choose to integrate both positions into one, hence the vegetable chef.
• Pantry Chef or Garde Manger – pantry chefs are in charge of items that are served raw or cold. Included in their list of things handle are hors d’oevres, salads, cold soups, cold sauces, pates and other similar items on the menu.
• Butcher or Boucher – this person is in charge of the cutting and butchering of all types of meat and poultry in the kitchen, as the title aptly shows. While this person may not do any cooking in the kitchen, the skill this person has is considered one of the hardest to learn and is one of the lessons you are required to master at any culinary arts school.
• Expediter – if you watch a lot of cooking competitions on TV, you may have very well heard this term at one time or another. What an expediter does is he serves as a communicator or bridge between the wait staff and the kitchen. These people have to have a keen eye and an organized disposition since they will be the ones responsible with seeing that the food placed on each table meets the quality standards of the restaurant.
• Commis – most culinary school graduates find themselves in this position immediately after they finish school and rightfully so since this position helps them learn the ropes from the bottom up. Also called apprentice chefs, commis are assigned to certain chef de parties in order to master a certain station or part of the kitchen.