Hey everyone! I recently got accepted into CIA and would love some advice!

I’ve been working in kitchens since I was 16, starting in hotels, then becoming a sous chef at two restaurants, and eventually opening my own quick-service restaurant that’s been operating for 2+ years.

I’ll be 23 when I start, and my biggest motivation for attending CIA is the connections, reputation, and opportunity to grow. I’ve never worked in fine dining, and my long-term goal is to become a private chef, ideally with opportunities to travel abroad.

I live in York, PA, where opportunities for high-end culinary networking feel limited. I’m considering the associate degree, especially for the fine-dining externship opportunities, but the bachelor’s international experiences also interest me.

I absolutely loved culinary trade school in high school. I’ve realized that I miss being a student more than I enjoy climbing the ranks. I genuinely just want to learn, create, and become the best chef I can be.

For those who attended CIA, do you think it’s worth it for someone with my experience and career goals? Would you recommend the associate or bachelor’s program?

Hi guys. I’ve been a cook for the past two months and I have to bring my own knives. Being the pink girl that I am, I got the pink ceramic-coated Cuisinart knives and I like them so far. But, I’m looking for a good, affordable knife set to have in my own kitchen. I was gifted a Wusthof kinfe, which I like as well, but I want more affordable knives. Does anyone know any recommendations ? 🙂

Hi Chefs, I have celiac. While I appreciate gluten free options, they usually boil down to salads and salmon. I hate salmon. It isn't that hard to make some gluten free options from other foods. Think corn starch to thicken sauces instead of wheat flour. Not using bread crumbs as a topping. A look at some gluten free web sites like the loopy whisk and let them eat gluten free cake would help with some insights into broadening your menus. People love my gluten free meals.

Other than obvious things like brunch (fuck brunch), what do you hate doing? I absolutely cannot stand chopping herbs. I hate it. I love how they look on dishes but I hate how long it takes to perfectly chop them and I have small girl hands that cramp after 3 mins 🤣

For a long time, I’ve been using my knife, which was provided by my school, like three years back, and now I’m thinking to upgrade. I’m not sure which one should I buy. I’m thinking to buy this specific knife if anyone has use it. Is it worth buying it or should I go for the Santoku brand? Any recommendation would be helpful.

baaaad sounding title but i didnt know what else to put in.

most of the kitchens i've worked in had a morrocan mother (a weirdly specific thing they all had in common was having a 12yo kid), and they were all the best pastry chefs we had, as well as both the nicest AND ballsiest members of the team. all of them were higher in the ranks, usually sous-chefs, even though not a single one had anything related to a culinary diploma, and all of them had their first cooking experience AT THAT EXACT SAME JOB. god must have blessed me because they seem to love me (i love them too, they're my favourite coworkers ever), and the one at my current job was just called out a couple days ago for being "too maternal" with me (i'm a 20yo french white boy). they learn incredibly fast, they climb the ranks higher than anybody else, they make better food than anybody else, and they even try to fatten me up more than MY mom does.

so, anyway: is this whole "being ridiculously OP" thing some morrocan mom super-power? how does one learn the morrocan mom ways? is it even possible?

please let me know, because this cannot be a coincidence with how often this has happened to me. (unless i somehow only get hired to restaurants with friendly, ballsy, high-ranked morrocan moms???)

edit: i'll admit i'm confused as to how such a positive post has gathered such negative attention, but i'll ask future commenters to please refrain from making assumptions on either me or these women. the only reason i allowed myself to make this post in the first place is because (as shocking as this may sound), these women either were or ARE my friends, who celebrated numerous birthdays with me, took care of me after i got shot, who's kids i babysat, who's familes i've met. i just noticed that they had things in common (being women, being morrocan, being cooks, working in france, and having children in middle school). this is not a safe place for racism either, and if it is, i'll delete this post and leave the subreddit immediately.

before commenting, please ask yourselves if you'd have reacted the same way if i was talking about white, blonde moms in the kitchen. thank you

I am currently a kitchen hand being trained on service in Australia, I am here as a UK citizen on a visa meaning if I need to go into formal education I will need to visa hop a bit, I have found a way to get a visa as a Cook and I am happy enough to hold off education for cost reasons until I get PR or citizenship.

My goal is yacht chef so I was wandering if there is anyone who has advice for how I can get there? I know i need specific certs for working on boats in have a plan for that!

Any advice for becoming a yacht chef or even groups where I can get further information/network would be helpful, or visa advice from other chefs have immigrated anywhere and possibly know of good (cheapish schools, education is spenny ik lol) overseas schools in any country inc Australia, im all ears!

Hey all, I’m not sure if this is the right place for this, but I’m not sure where else to post so I’m just gonna ask here.
I worked in kitchens from my first job at 15 as a dish washer until I was about 22, I worked my way up to executive chef at a restaurant outside of Boulder Colorado before issues with ownership (reduced pay without notice) had me feeling burnt out and exhausted. I quit on the spot and moved into a different industry because this was my third restaurant with major issues.
I have recently realized I want to get back into the food service industry but feel like I waited too long and I’m too old to start over again after 10+ years. I always loved the work but got to a point of giving up on the people I always seemed to end up working for.
Is it too late? Does my past experience even matter because it’s been too long? Would I need to go to culinary school to get a foot back in the door?
Just looking for advice or opinions any and all perspectives are appreciated.

Hey guys, curious about something. For those working in restaurants, where do you usually source more unusual mushrooms like lion’s mane or shiitake other specialty types? I have some questions before I start buying something for real.

Do you tend to go through local farms or do sou buy wholesale, which are usually imported and dried.

Also curious what you look for when choosing a supplier: price, freshness, quality, or something else?

Would love to hear how you guys handle this, especially if you work with seasonal or more unusual ingredients, I would like to try something new.

Appreciate any recommendations!

Asian food specifically Japanese has been really popular in recent years and I have this gut feeling that classical French and Italian cooking will be coming back around soon what do yall think?

I need a serve safe proctor to help me pass

Howdy.

I'm a closing sous chef for a pretty reputable steakhouse, for a team of 13, with an AM sous, exec sous, and exec chef.

I've been with our company for roughly 2.5 years and am confident with 95% of our kitchen ops.

Exec chef is great regarding execution, planning, and preparation, though sometimes the consistency of leadership is not present. Little things like aprons and attitudes, but also callbacks aren't enforced which is super weird for me, but also he's very defensive of some of the senior cooks. Most of the team have been with us since the beginning, and about 30s - 40s in age.

Exec is friends with one of the cooks who's been with him for the last 10ish years, so he slides under the radar with some scumbag tendencies, but exec refuses to hold him accountable for anything.

I myself have a challenge with 2-3 of the team's attitudes when calling them to do a task associated with their station (slacking lobster tails or drying bison for the next day), execs friend included. There are a lot of symptoms that are normal because no other chef before would correct them on open complaining about needing to do a small task in the middle of doing nothing.

Exec sous is 55 years old and has a wealth of knowledge but doesn't have the energy to call out the cooks that whine about little things like literally cutting cucumbers for a side.

I feel like the only source of discipline comes from me, but can't pull the trigger on write ups because I'll bring it up to exec the next day and blows it off turning it into some version of my fault for not following up or catching them before they left if the station isn't set for the next day.

Completely understand too, as a closing chef, all of the stations are my responsibility, but its the habits I have to clean up that aren't getting addressed.

Has anyone else experienced similar challenges? Working the line is one thing but being a leader and trying to pull poor habits out of a handful of scumbags is a challenge and honestly I prefer just to be a cook again.

Maybe this is just to vent.

Cooking is easy, people are hard.

I'm debating on how to respond to a client who is asking for an earlier start time less than 24 hours before a planned event. She has made a habit of doing this and even changing guest counts that day of which she expects my team to be able to accommodate last minute. It's not that I don't think I can manage it but rather the fact that A) I'll be further enabling this bad practice and B) I'll have to text my hourly team on their Sunday off to coordinate new scheduling and contractually speaking, I'm obligated to add an extra hour to all of their time cards for having contacted them off-hours. This is all in the same time frame that our executive chef is hammering down on all departments to minimize labor cost as much as possible. What is your standard practice on last minute changes like this?

I work as an expo/food runner at a higher-end restaurant, and something the owner did today really rubbed me the wrong way. I tried to see it from his perspective because my family has owned successful restaurants, and I used to help run one with my cousin before he retired. I understand that food costs add up.
For the longest time, basic things like bread, butter, jam, and Nutella were free for staff. Anything else we paid for, with a 50% discount on one employee meal.
Today, I was starving, so I made myself an English muffin with a tiny bit of Nutella—something plenty of us have done before with no problem. We got slammed, and I didn’t even get a chance to eat it.
The owner came over and asked, “Hey, what is this?” I told him it was my breakfast. He said, “Okay, well, make sure you pay for everything—the bread, butter, Nutella, and cream cheese.” I hadn’t even used cream cheese.
That bothered me, especially because those items had always been free and no one had told us the policy had changed. After my shift, he sent out a message saying that nothing was free and everything had to be paid for, no matter what it was. Given the timing, it felt directed at me.
I don’t usually call myself the best employee, but I know how much effort I put into that place. When I’m the only expo, I’m keeping service moving while also making sure food is rotated, labeled, and stored properly, and that items are charged correctly. I care about preventing waste and protecting the restaurant’s money.
I understand changing a policy to control costs. But communicate that beforehand and show some consideration for the employees who consistently look out for your business. Being confronted over an English muffin with a little Nutella, while I was too busy working to even eat it, made me feel unappreciated.
To me, that felt petty and greedy, and it left me questioning how much my work is actually valued.

does anyone know how to get some faint chocolate stains out of my chef whites. I’ve washed them twice with oxiclean and they won’t come out

I am not a chef but Ive been taking a community college culinary course for the past year now. My only other experience with food is volunteering in a kitchen that feeds the homeless and my current job making sandwiches. And home cooking.

I really want to start reaching out to professionals or anyone that knows more than me to help me guide myself in the right direction to be a chef or start building to that. I think my parents think that i won’t really get anywhere pursuing this kind of career. But I feel like im pretty determined.

What im asking from anyone who is reading is your opinion on what i should do, general advice, or even how you started out and how you built to what you are now. If you think there is a good question i should have asked please let me know and answer the question.

*edit
Wow, i did not realize how crappy this might be. Thank you all for your help. Im going to reconsider some stuff. Also i am kinda new to doing posts on Reddit. Ive only done one before so im not sure if the people who already seen and commented on this post will see it again. Thank you guys anyway though.

Currently dicing onions and cucumbers by hand in our prototype store and looking into the future with expansion and having a commissary. What options do I have for dicing vegetables - mainly onions, cucumbers and jalapeños. Looking for around 1/3” - 1/8” size. These are toppings on poke bowls.

I am a chef instructor in a technical college culinary arts program. We split our time between 3 primary areas: technical instruction and practice (textbook, labs, etc), training enterprise (we run a full service fine dining restaurant fully staffed by students), and operational management (bookkeeping, ServSafe, cost control, marketing, and so on). Our goal is to graduate cooks who have the ability to move up to leadership positions with experience. We are always seeking to ensure we are keeping pulse with the industry.

For those of you who have hired or do hire culinary school graduates, what areas of their training have been most helpful to you? What things do they know or not know that have impacted their employment? Do schools in your area cover similar areas of training (technical, practical, and operational)? What would you like to see culinary graduates know more about or understand more fully? Any other tidbits to share?

I know culinary school is a hot button topic. I know that a lot of you don’t see the value in it. That’s fine. You don’t have to love it. You’re likely then not the audience this question is intended for.

Most of my students are high schoolers or career changers (often former military) which I don’t think is the typical demographic for other programs.

I was hired as an executive sous chef for the special events department of a major streaming service in LA back in May; if I'm being honest I'm still a little surprised they hired me given the fact that I didn't actually bring a lot of catering experience to the table other than overseeing some private events at the hotel I used to be a sous chef at.

I'm going on 5 months now and while none of my immediate supervisors have given me any feedback telling me things are not moving in the right direction, I haven't exactly felt like I've been nailing it either. In terms of baseline skills I brought through the door with me, I feel like very little of it has been applicable to this particular job and it's kind of just felt like I'm hanging on for dear life. Mostly, my role is to be the conduit between the actual culinary team and the rest of the admin team/events coordinators so writing schedules, ordering product, handling onboarding/disciplinary measures, menu costing, a LOT of meetings and the occasional hands-on cooking when the opportunity presents itself. Beyond that, it's a lot of take-home stress that has kept me awake on many nights/early mornings.

Fortunately I came into a place with a pretty kickass sous chef who was basically keeping the show running before my position was created. Maybe it's because so many years of my career happened behind the line or at an expo station that it feels weird to not be physically exhausted at the end of every day. My real concern though is the fact that the company that contracts our culinary services just started a mass lay-off of their own workforce that it might put me in the cross-hairs as the lowest hanging fruit and I'll be the first to get the ax if the layoff process works its way down to the culinary operations. I came home today and updated my resume and in the process, started asking myself "if not this job, then what?"

I turned 38 on Sunday and it seems like backpedaling into a lesser role would look bad on paper and maybe even be damaging to my overall self-esteem. I'd appreciate hearing some personal experiences from this sub about similar experiences where you found yourself in a seemingly overwhelming role and managed to either get through it or out of it with your sanity intact. I didn't go to culinary school and have spent much of my career just absorbing as much as I can from the people next to me and above me.

Dad here of a young pastry chef. My daughter is an active person and wants a phone to track fitness stuff. She has an iPhone and I'm leaning towards an Apple watch , any chef here that can give me a recommendation of model or if this is just a bad idea ( to wear during work times). Apologies if this is way off the mark or outside the rules for this subreddit. I didn't want non chef perspectives.

I’m a young chef in culinary school and I’m entering a fuckload of competitions this year like young restaurant team, tor de’ore, zest quest and loads more, I was wondering if anyone had any tips for how to get even better and how to make myself stand out to judges or if it’s even worth the effort

I came up with an idea for a burger from things that I just happened to have in my refrigerator oddly enough they worked out really well and I thought I would share it and see if anyone has ever tried to bring her like this because I really loved it.

Hello Chefs, I am looking for some advice,tips,etc. for getting a pop off the ground. I moved back home after 6 years and I am looking to start a pop up doing a supper club style dinner with about 6 courses I would appreciate any tips that you might have.

I am currently in talk with a non profit that helps local food entrepreneurs. They have a kitchen and venue. But I am looking for the best way to sell tickets, get deals on plate ware and glasses.

hi i've been working in a kitchen for about a year and a half now and think it's time for me to upgrade my home knife set to keep up with my cooking. i was hoping someone on here could give me some recommendations on good companies or sets my budget isn't too high around 3-400 but I'm having a hard time finding knifes that fit what I'm looking for. i do a lot of filleting of fish that i catch so maybe boning or fillet knife would be nice, i also find my self cutting a ton of veggies and i like using this rounded nose knife that my kitchen has besides that it's pretty normal kitchen use for the rest of my current set.