Actually it's a little more in-depth(well it useto be, I'll explain that lower). When I started out it was: cook: two years training(while on the job), basics

Actually it's a little more in-depth(well it useto be, I'll explain that lower). When I started out it was: cook: two years training(while on the job), basics of most styles of cooking. Chef: 4 years training (most of the time, on the job), with a day of University each week. Learnt basic cooking skills. Plus how and why of ingredients, how to cost and manage a kitchen, basic logistics(to understand how distance effects produce and the best ways to minimise the effects to ensure top quality ingredients), and a whole assortment of similarly unthought of information (put it in way most techs would understand: backend coding). Recently most chef's qualifications have been reduced to 2 years, But that's a whole 'nother story :-p To sum up, a chef isn't an experienced cook who can manage a kitchen - they are someone with the training to manage the staff, costings, health and safety checks, menus, discover and cater to local and new tastes, research upcoming trends, minimise risk(be it personnel, upcoming laws, basic food and hygene, ingury management and mitigation etc), as well as prepare and cook every dish on the menu (in a timely and cost controlled fashion). While some cooks can manage and run a kitchen, (and I have met some amazing ones over the years), to say they are eanywhere near chef's in general, is akin to saying a student programmer is a full stack dev