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"A greasy-spoon cook would also experience a period of adjustment if dropped onto the line of a Michelin-starred restaurant." I've worked both. The greasy spoo
by lightedman 2y ago
"A greasy-spoon cook would also experience a period of adjustment if dropped onto the line of a Michelin-starred restaurant."
I've worked both. The greasy spoon cook would fare better thrown into Michelin-star service vs the Michelin star cook going into general food service. General food service is ROUGH. In a Michelin starred joint (let's take Curtis Stone's 'Maude' for example) things are prepared quietly, quickly yet slowly enough to allow for precision in presentation. You often have quite a bit of time between courses, so you can collect yourself and prepare for the next course for your guests. Courses generally don't exist in general food service, and you aren't getting any real self-collection time unless you're on your break, as short as that may be.
- jalapenos 2y agoOut of interest, how does someone who's worked as these cooks end up frequenting HN?
- Ntrails 2y agoNot the GP, but I've worked fast food and 2 starred kitchens. I don't at all agree with his assessment, or rather I think the failure mode goes similarly both ways. How? I screwed up my schooling and fell into cooking. Mum had taught me to cook as a child and I'd had after school/weekend jobs since I was 14? So I did it for a while until 50 hour weeks and no money got old. I was lucky, university had an "access" course for the degree level maths and offered me a place. 4 years later I had a degree in maths from a tolerable university and got a job doing mathematical modelling...
- willcipriano 2y agoI did ten years in the industry, started working almost full time as a dishwasher at 13. Towards the end I did consulting for restaurants.
- schwartzworld 2y agoNot OP but I worked in restaurants through my 20s. Didn't get into tech until 2nd half of my 30s.
- jalapenos 2y agoWhat process did you go through to make that transition?
- el_duderino_ 2y agoKitchen rat from 16-27 years old, worked shitty dives to fine dining. Realized working kitchens is not healthy or profitable long term so I made my hobby (tech) my career. Overall it was a great decision, but I still deeply miss the kitchen. If I could have a sense of normalcy and decent pay I would strongly consider going back to the line.
- lightedman 2y agoI was a computer nerd starting around age 5 and I started my taxable life in a Chinese restaurant and Oriental market combo at age 15.
- chefandy 2y agoUh, that was very very much not my experience working in high-end fine dining. I worked as a bouncer at some really violent nightclubs and working as a fine dining cook was consistently WAY more pressure. Working in lower-level cooking jobs could be insanely fast-paced, but it was way more even and the staffing levels made way more sense.