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The role of chef de cuisine requires much more than just the ability to cook and prepare amazing dishes. It takes excellent leadership skills, creativity and discipline. A brief look at history reveals a long line of flamboyant, inspired, formidable, and sometimes outrageous culinary personalities.

As part of every chef’s training, considerable time will be spent on mastering knife skills. Once you’ve gained confidence in chopping, slicing and dicing, you’re ready to move on to the other aspects of cooking, knowing that you’re able to prepare your ingredients with speed and precision.

Are these culinary terms part of your daily vocabulary or part of your restaurant team's one?

Socially responsible business is where it’s at today – across the restaurant sector, as well as every other industry.

The food you cook says a lot about who you are as a person and a chef. Your culture and family traditions are embedded in your palette, and it’s likely that this is where your initial inclination towards cooking stems from. As you rise through the ranks to become a head chef, you will hopefully gain more freedom to express your creativity and share your culinary inspiration through the meals you prepare.

Before you can start experimenting with ingredients and indulging in daring combinations, however, you do need to have your basic cooking skills firmly established. Honest and willing tasters will also give you the necessary feedback to perfect your dishes. Once you do, you’re on your way to establishing yourself as a specialist – something that many employers will rate highly when viewing applicants.

Like fashion, food trends come and go. Whether it’s reimagined traditional dishes, exotic novelty flavours gaining popularity or tech-inspired food experiences that bring a new excitement to dining out; the culinary industry is always evolving and looking for fresh ways to keep customers wanting more. It can be hard to decide which trends are worth your while and which ones are destined to be nothing more than a flash in the pan.

Keeping a finger on the pulse of culinary trends can help your restaurant get ahead in a competitive market, and it can also switch up the mundane routine of churning out the same specials every week. So what should we be looking out for?

The food industry is thriving. However there is often a long road to travel before you get the head chef job. Nevertheless, it’s worth remembering that whatever stage you’re at there’s always something you can do right now to help improve your head chef job prospects. 

All of us have had that interaction with an employee who isn’t fully engaged with their job. Distracted, slow, low on energy and maybe even sullen, if an employee is clearly not happy with what they’re doing this kind of attitude can filter through the whole team. On the flip side, the good vibes of happy employees tend to spread not only through the team, but to customers too and if your team feels taken care of they are far more likely to go the extra mile for the business.

Online reviews have become an essential part of marketing for any restaurant. 88% of customers incorporate online reviews into their purchase decision making process and 90% of customers now read online reviews. Given these statistics, the likelihood is that your business is being read about or talked about somewhere online right now. So, how do you maximise this as part of your marketing efforts?

Do you know if your current restaurant marketing is working? Can you measure the return on your marketing investment? And, if your marketing efforts don’t seem to be producing any results, do you know why? Questions such as these are essential when it comes to evaluating how precious marketing resources are spent so as to ensure that you are getting the most impact from every marketing investment. If you don’t feel that you have a good idea of your restaurant’s marketing needs, current marketing performance and potential stumbling points then a marketing audit may be essential.

Social media can be a huge growth driver. If your business is seeking a new audience, launching a new location or looking to gain traction for a change of menu then a strong social media network can bring attention, as well as diners, through your doors. What many brands don’t realise is that your restaurant team is a huge asset when it comes to social media strategy.

Discounting is a popular trick in the restaurant trade but it doesn’t always produce the best results. Many experts now believe that discounting is rarely an effective strategy for attracting regular customers and building up a loyal base of support. In fact, you could even be damaging your brand if you’re still using discounting as a business tool.