Executive Chef

When it comes to the hierarchy of a restaurant, the buck stops with the Executive Chef. After years of sweat and toil in the kitchen – and sometimes in university classes – a professional Chef’s career path leads them to the top of the foodservice pecking order.

Daily work involves administrative and managerial duties, as well as the conception and implementation of new recipes and dishes. Formulating a successful menu is an art in itself, and it takes a well-rounded executive with a flair for creativity and vision to pull it off. As the head, it is also the Executive Chef’s responsibility to pass on skills to the others with a passion for professional cooking.

Many Chefs enter the world of white jackets and toques with a lifelong love for food. For some, it begins as a job as a teenager in a restaurant that leads to an interest in professional cooking. From there, it leads to cooking classes and on to schools for a disciplined, formalized program in the culinary arts. Regardless of the road you choose, though, broadening your experience in a variety of dining situations –large dining halls, small rooms, independent restaurants and hotels –pays off in time.

Executive Chefs has taken center stage on many TV shows over the years, the iconic Julia Childs, an American Chef, perhaps the best known personality of days past. More recent celebrity chefs include Emeril Lagasse, who first became Executive Chef at Commander’s Palace in New Orleans then opened his famous Emeril’s. As seen in his example, cookbooks are a popular side pursuit that Executive Chefs use to spread and profit from their experience.