Sous Chef

Calling all aspiring chefs! Do you dream of running your own kitchen? Do you want to create delectable new recipes? Do you see yourself wearing that coveted chef’s hat? For many professionals, a great first step toward a successful cooking career is becoming a sous chef.

Personal Connection

A sous chef is the second in command (after the executive chef) in a restaurant kitchen. Becoming a sous chef requires training at a culinary school or studying under executive chefs to develop cooking techniques and the skills need to work in a kitchen:

Do you enjoy cooking and creating new recipes?
Do you like working in a fast-paced environment?
Are you detail-oriented and organized?
Can you be a team player and remain calm in stressful situations?
Do you have a creative perspective you want to share with others?

Other Connections

There are many other career paths in the food industry that require similar skills and interests as a sous chef. Some other career options are:

Becoming a food writer or blogger and working for yourself or for a larger publication

Researching food science and learning how new technologies can help chefs cook safer and healthier meals

Working in public service for governmental departments such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to inspect restaurants for health and safety standards

Working in the restaurant industry in the areas of marketing, website design, social media, and public relations

Working in other jobs in the culinary arts, such as a food stylist or pastry chef

Becoming a personal chef to be employed by families or large businesses

STEM Connection

Because of advancements in food science and technology, there are many exciting innovations affecting people in the food industry. Here are just a few ways that new technologies are transforming the culinary world:

A good culinary arts school needs technology:

Because food preparation is a technology-oriented process, aspects of science and technology are all over the curriculum of a culinary arts degree. Culinary students use many types of technology and tools to achieve different textures, temperatures, and flavors.

Hi-tech kitchens are the new norm:

From Bluetooth temperature sensors to using virtual reality simulations to train new chefs, technology is everywhere in any good kitchen.

Technology improves communication:

For every kitchen, getting orders right is key. Handwritten orders can get lost and messy handwriting can make it hard to read orders correctly. Many restaurants use paperless systems to improve the accuracy and efficiency of communication between the front of the house and the kitchen.

It’s not just the chefs – tech is affecting the restaurant business in a big way:

The more our world becomes tech-reliant, the more restaurants have to adapt. From being able to accept virtual or no-touch payments, online reservations and ordering, and even virtual menus, restaurants don’t have time to wait when it comes to using new tech.

Journeys to Becoming a Sous Chef

The path to working as a sous chef may seem like a faraway dream, but did you know that you can get started on that path even in high school?

Read about this young scientist who grew up to be a professional chef:

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Vayu Maini Rekdal always had a passion for science and cooking. “While I discovered many tools for creating unexpected flavors and sensations, none was more powerful than the science I learned in school,” he remembers. For Vayu, cooking was more than just about flavors and tastes, and science was more than about finding the perfect recipe. He says, “Kitchen science was more than an ingredient for better food; it was a bridge to the principles informing our understanding of the universe.”

While many students might develop an interest in cooking, hands-on experience, such as working in a restaurant, can be a great way to figure out if a career as a chef is right for you. After high school, the next step for a future chef is to apply to culinary school. Vayu’s passion for food and his high school understanding of scientific concepts like heat, ratios, and molecular structure helped him gain acceptance to Carleton College where he studied culinary arts. In addition to learning all the technical skills of a chef, Vayu founded the organization “Young Chefs” to share his love of cooking with others. His organization has developed a science curriculum for middle schoolers that combines the world of science with the art of cooking.

Since completing culinary school, Vayu has had a range of experiences from being a sous chef, executive chef, and private chef, as well as a published scientist and researcher. Now, he is at Harvard to earn his PhD and further study his interest in how science and cooking intersect.

Read about one Michelin star chef’s unconventional journey to follow his passion:

Born in India, Thomas Zacharias was not sure that becoming a chef would be an option for him. He didn’t know many other chefs, and he wasn’t sure what steps he needed to take to achieve his dream. However, he was passionate about becoming a chef and he knew he would find a way.

“Like many chefs,” Thomas remembers, “my love for food and cooking can be traced back to my childhood. I was a relatively quiet kid growing up, timid even… While my friends were out kicking balls on the field or playing video games, I dreamt of food.”

There were no culinary schools where he lived, so he enrolled in hotel management courses. He had to endure many years of hard work, but he forged ahead to become a professional chef, delighted by the happiness that his cooking brought the people in his life. He now is a chef at a three-Michelin star rated restaurant and uses his early days of learning traditional Indian dishes to inspire and guide his recipes now.

Articles, Videos, Podcasts of Interest

This fun and informative infographic will tell you everything you need to know about being a chef:

Check out Vayu Maini Rekdal’s Ted Talk exploring the relationship between food, science, and the kitchen:

Learn what it took one cook to go from “kitchen grunt to sous chef” in this podcast:

Interested in the culinary industry? Read up on your job outlook as a sous chef here:

Listen to Here & Now’s Robin Young interview sous chef and author Michael Gibney – who started when he was just 16:

Fun Facts/“Did You Know?”

Some fun trivia about chefs:

There is a difference:

People might often confuse the term “cook” with “chef”, but did you know that there is actually a difference?

“Sous” means under:

Because fine dining was created in France, many of the terms you’ll hear about the culinary world are in French.

The world of cookbooks:

Did you know that cookbooks are so popular that there are actually literary agents and publishers who specialize in cookbooks alone?

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