Miles Collins

The Life of a Commis Chef

What does a commis chef do in a kitchen? What is a commis chef? These are the two most asked questions of me by young, soon to be school leavers considering a career in hotel and restaurant catering.

So what does a commis (trainee) chef do? “All the crap jobs” I hear you cry. Well, yes, to an extent. I suppose this depends on your definition of a ‘crap job’, peeling potatoes isn’t glamorous but it has to be done. Who would the person who pays my mortgage rather stand and peel potatoes? me, on my salary or a sixteen year old who isn’t?

Commis chefs have to start with the most basic jobs, you can’t give a sixteen year old some scallops at £21 per kilo to ruin at their will, let them hack a carrot to death, it’s cheaper.

I’ve destroyed some things in my time, believe me. I can still remember the aftermath of a leg of pork I once boned out, it looked like a stricken wilderbeest set upon by a pack of particularly hungry lions. You live and learn, but you have to learn fast otherwise you don’t live.

Being a trainee chef can be a bloody awful time, if it isn’t enough for a young boy to worry about important things like trying to talk to girls and growing facial hair he’s getting screamed at because he couldn’t tell the difference between sugar and salt and you would be suprised at how many don’t know the difference.

Commis chefs are usually hell bent on climbing the kitchen ladder, titles are everything. I interviewed a nineteen year old this week who was more interested in the title I would give him rather than what he would be cooking. What’s the rush?

The days of sending commis chefs off for daft errands are sadly behind us. In this ‘pc’ world we live in it is no longer okay to send a commis to get a ‘leg of salmon’ or a ‘half kilo of chicken lips’ and I sort of miss it to be honest. I had it done to me and it was never malicious, nor did it do me any harm, indeed it helped me to better integrate with the rest of the team, it broke the ice.

So now we are left with teenagers with NVQ’s in tin opening and microwave operating from the college of ’soft touches’. It wasn’t like that in my day!