On the first day of class, within the first hour in fact, we put our students in groups and ask then to list the qualities that best define a professional cook versus a professional chef.  This is to eliminate any illusion that the focus of our school is not to create chefs, but cooks, and more specifically, students on their road to becoming professional cooks.  Amazingly, they do an accurate job of being quite real about this, eliminating any need for the school instructors to pontificate the reality of the industry (you know, that speech every industry chef believes no one has ever heard before).  So our students are asked to put into words what they feel they need to bring to the table AND what they feel a chef should bring to the table.  The following is a list of what they concluded, in no particular order:

Cook:  Hard-working, disciplined, hungry for knowledge and skills, consistent, persistent, team player, motivated, committed, organized, loyal, punctual, multi-tasker, stress management, good communicator, clean, humble.

Chef:  Leadership, passionate, good coach/teacher, respectful, disciplined, inspirational, graceful under pressure, loyal to cook’s development, organized, quality-conscious, open-minded, integrity, patient, available, professional at all times, humble.

Impressive, if you tell me.  It saves us 3-4 weeks of putting our students through a reality check.  They do it themselves…and nice to see the media hasn’t skewed their perspective and sensibilities. I only hope they can live to that standard.

Tony Minichiello

Humble Culinary Instructor who spilled clarified butter and split his beurre blanc today…a great day, nevertheless.