CAREER AS A CHEF

A Chef is a person who creates mouthwatering dishes and concoctions day after day. A Chef enjoys feeding people and supervising their gastronomic demands. These days, chefs are also expected to have supervisory talents and double up not only as kitchen supervisors but also as managers.

Job Prospects

Chefs are employed all across the country in hotels, restaurants, bakeries, cruise liners, shipping industry, etc. The demand is also very high abroad where Indian cuisine is widely appreciated. You can also diversify into your own business and open a restaurant once you get sufficient training like Sanjeev Kapoor and Tarla Dalal, the well known faces on T.V. These people have cookery shows, books and restaurants with their brand name attached to them. Others who are forces to reckon with are Manjeet Singh Gill (Corporate Chef- Maurya) and Devinder Kumar (Le Meridian) who are irreplaceable for the Hotels they work for.

The Job

• You must know how to make a wide variety of foods like soups, appetizers, snacks, salads, main dishes, side orders and desserts
• To plan entire menus
• To come up with new dishes and recipes and excel in presentation of food
• To manage kitchen costs
• To take over as managers
• To supervise kitchen personnel and activities.
• To manage the bakery, kitchen, restaurant, food and beverages, wines departments, and to do a juggling job of them all efficiently.

Personality traits

• A keen sense of taste and smell
• Passion for food and a flair for cooking
• Instinct/ intuition for mixing flavors, etc
• Desire for perfection
• Urge to innovate/ experiment
• Grit, determination
• Willingness to work long hours
• Efficient memory to help you remember complicated, exotic international recipes
• Managerial skills

Career Progression and Salaries

• Trainee: After completing the diploma or bachelor's course, a student is usually taken in as a trainee in the kitchen, with a salary ranging between Rs 7,000 to Rs 9,500.
• Officer grade: After successful completion of training, a trainee may be absorbed in beginner positions with salaries ranging between Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000, plus perks.
• Chef: It usually takes two years in the field, post-training, to become a chef and, depending on performance, you may expect regular promotions. The salaries usually could range between Rs 15,000 to Rs 30,000.
• Sous Chef: It may take six to seven years to become a Sous Chef (kitchen in-charge). If a person is innovative and competent at his/ her work, he/ she can expect to draw close to Rs 60,000 per month within 5-8 years.
• Executive Chef: In about 10-12 years, a chef can reach the position of executive chef. An executive chef is responsible for all food and kitchen related decisions, including shopping, deciding the menu and innovation of new specialties. The Executive Chef is often one of the most highly paid professionals in the hotel since the food quality of the hotel directly enhances the image of the hotel. Many successful and reputed chains pay up to Rs 70,000 -- 1, 00,000 per month to their executive chefs.

The way-up in a kitchen -

Study Routes

 

There are two study routes one can follow to become a chef. You can either join a hotel management college, graduate and then join the kitchen. Here you will start your career as a Commis II and then rise to a Commis I. This takes about 2 years in a particular job. From there you rise to a Chef-de-partie and eventually to a Sous Chef. This is a supervisors' position and takes about 5 years to reach, depending on the organization you are in. In hotel chains like The Taj or the Oberoi, it could take a lesser time. Le Meridian provides more rigorous training and it takes longer to become a Sous Chef.

 

JEE gives you an entry into the 22 Hotel Management colleges across India on the basis of merit. But it is sometimes tough to clear the JEE (Joint Entrance Exam) and in that case, the other route to the kitchen is by joining ITI (Industrial Training Institutes) and Food Craft Institutes.

 

These provide Basic Courses in Kitchen Apprenticeship and here on you can become a kitchen trainee for a big hotel chain. Most of this training is practical with theory classes only once a week. Once inside the kitchen, the corporate ladder is very much the same as above.

Of course, Hotel management does provide you with a definite edge in your career.

 

Train to be a chef: Route 1
The first option is to do a course in hotel management at a reputed professional institute. The 19 institutes registered under the National Council of Hotel Management provide excellent training in the field.
Pre-requisites and admission process

• The eligibility for admission to a hotel management institution is 10 + 2 with a minimum of 60 percent aggregate marks.
• You must appear for a two-hour entrance exam comprising English, Reasoning, General Science and General Knowledge.
• This is followed by a group discussion and a rigorous interview in which your aptitude and personality is judged.
• The exam is held in April/ May and the academic sessions usually start by July/ August every year.
• The number of seats varies from college to college. Start doing your research and preparation as early as possible.

Places of Study

• Army Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Technology, A.Sc. Centre Bangalore 560007.
• Merit Swiss Asian School of Hotel Management, 22, Havelock Road, Ooty 643001, Nilgiris India
• Oriental School of Hotel Management 5/3411, Mangaden Centre, Mavoor Road, Kozhikode -- 673 004
• National Council for Hotel Management and Catering Technology, Library Avenue, Pusa Complex, New Delhi - 110012. Web site: NCHMCT.
• Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration, Valley View, Manipal -- 576 119. Web site: WGSHA.
• Indian Institute of Hotel Management (Taj Group), Rauza Bagh, Aurangabad -- 431 001.
• RN Shetty College of Hotel Management and Catering Technology, Kaviraj Nagar, Bilappanavai Nagar, Hubli -- 580 029. Web site: www.rnshotelmgtcollege.com
• Kadandala Krishna Rao Memorial College of Hotel Management, Woodlands Hotel Complex, 5, Raja Rammahan Roy Road, Bangalore -- 560 025. web site : KKRMC
• Government Institutes of Hotel Management & Catering at Dehradun and Almora and Institute of Hotel Management Catering Technology & Applied Nutrition, IHM&C House, H-239, Shastri Nagar, Meerut - 250 005
• Indian Institutes of Hotel Management (IIHM), Maulana Azad Educational Campus, Rauza Bagh, Aurangabad 431 001
• Indian Institute of Hotel Management, 11, IAS Colony, Kidwaipuri, Patna 1.
• Institute of Advanced Management Hotel Management College, AE-486, Salt Lake City, Calcutta 700 064
• Indian Institute of Sciences and Management, Institutional area, Pundag, Ranchi 834004
• RM Institute of Hotel Management MP-13 Sainik Farms (South), New Delhi 110 062
• International Institute of Hotel Management, EC 37, Salt Lake, Calcutta 700064
• Oriental School of Hotel Management, 5/3411, Mangaden Centre Mavoor Road, Calicut 673004
• Institutes under the National Council offer a three-year diploma course while private institutes offer a four-year Bachelor's programme.

 

Apart from these, there are institutes run by reputed hotel chains and some private institutes with foreign affiliations and approvals from the All India Council for Technical Education.
Courses run by reputed hotel chains are considered more credible because of their infrastructure, faculty and the future prospects offered. They are the best bet in terms of exposure to a working hotel and they enable one to imbibe the exacting levels of service. One may also be absorbed by the parent company post the training.

 

These institutes are run by three premium hotels graded as best in this category:

• The Taj Group's Institute of Hotel Management in Aurangabad
• Oberoi School of Hotel Management in New Delhi
• Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration in Manipal

 

Another option is to train at a renowned institute abroad.

Institutes abroad

• The Hotel and Tourism School, Les Roches, CH 3961 Bluche, Crans Montana, Valais, Switzerland. Web site: The Hotel and Tourism School, Les Roches
• Swiss Hotel Management School, CH - 1824, Caux/Montreux, Switzerland, Web site: SHMS
• Leeds College of Technology, Calverly Street, Leeds, Yorkshire, UK, Web site: Leeds College of Technology
• Cornell University School of Hotel Management and Administration, Statler Hall, Ithaca
• NY 14850, USA. Web site: Cornell University School of Hotel Management and Administration

 

The advantages of joining a professional institute are that many of them have campus placements so one is likely to command a higher remuneration and work with better industry brands. Since you are trained in various hospitality disciplines, this knowledge could come to use when starting your own business venture.

 

Train to be a chef: Route II
You could join a Food Craft Institutes which are in cities like Aligarh, Alwaye, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Darjeeling, Delhi, Faridabad, Gangtok, Patna, Pondichery, Pune, Tiruchapalli, Udaipur, Visakhapatnam after Class X or XII. Such institutes exist in many states and provide training in catering and food processing. Courses are generally 6-18 months long.
One can join a hotel at a junior level after such a course and reach a supervisory level in about six to seven years. This is a quicker option and is apt for those who are absolutely focused on becoming a chef and do not want to dabble in other fields of hotel management at all.

The drawbacks of this route are that there is no concept of campus placement. You may not get a job with the best brands and may get a lower salary. However, the course cost and duration is less as compared to at a professional institute. And, of course, your progress would also depend on your own effort and aptitude too.

 

Socure: Compass One

Date: 29th Oct., 2009

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