An anonymous restaurant owner on the Shameless Restaurants gossip board is the latest to dash the hopes of starstruck culinary-school grads. His rant implies that a glut of newcomers has pushed wages down to $12 per hour in the kitchens of celebrity chefs.
Twenty years ago I started to work as a line cook at China Grill (53rd and 6th Avenue) I was making after taxes 600 dls per 40 hrs. week. Wow! I thought this is a great job, I want to be a chef to make lots of money.
Thank you food network,
Thank you celebrities chefs,
Thank you Compass group,
Thank you big restaurant chains,
Thank you Culinary Institute of America,
Thank you Culinary Schools, etc.
Now everybody is an iron chef.
What an absurd joke. 10 to 16 (if you are lucky) dls per hour. for a line cook position. i was making more 20 years ago.
How sad it is, now you come out of a culinary school and you’ll be working for a celebrity chef who is going to pay you 12 dls per hour and for how long? 10 years then what? you think that you’ll be famous. A word of advice Good Luck. You are going to be a slave. Welcome to the real world.
A better advice for young chefs, fuck the celebrity chefs. Work for small restaurants make yourself present, do not stay under the shadow of a David Burke, Daniel Boulud or a Jean-Georges. Be yourself, work with the spanish people, people that are going to respect you because you work as hard as they do. Make yourself dirty, our love for food goes beyond what you see in the food network. Fried mayonnaise my ass, food is sacred not a freaking joke, Oh! What is that in the center of the plate? a deconstructed strawberry ice cream. not is aereted foie… Wow! the chef is a genius. Ha, ha, ha,…
After all Gordon Ramsay is right look for kitchen nightmares and make them dream restaurants or at least help them out, make them honorable. Believe in our love for food. Do not sell your souls to the devils. I hope that you are listening. Right now I have 15 immigrants working for me and I’m teaching to each one of them every single aspect of the kitchen for free. Old school but though cooks sorry they have no papi who can pay for their culinary school. Just imagine how many cooks I have trained after 20 years in the restaurant business. Be positive stay away from famous.
Sad Sad Sad [Shameless Restaurants]
