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Originally Posted by Rezdaddy Longlegs
I have worked in restaurants for about 6 years. I started as a paid dishwasher and then as I did that got trained to help with prep. All that time being paid...Then once you get that you can train to be line cook, then gourmet chef...I never made it past there since im in school now but the next steps are su chef and manager of restaurant.
If you do it correctly you should always be getting paid. My friend started in a deli in which they will usually train you. From there just take initiative to learn hot foods and stuff and use that experience to get a restaurant job. Also lie and exaggerate on resume, very important.
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I too have worked in restaurants for 6 going on 7 years, I have never been a dishwasher but have worked plenty of prep cook jobs that did not pay at first. However with time (2-weeks to 3 months) I earned my way into the kitchen. I have only worked in fine dining, I have never worked with frozen bags or pre-made food in my entire life. "Gourmet chef" is a nonsense term, in an American kitchen there are (sometimes) prep cooks, line cooks, a sous, and an executive chef. In larger restaurants/dining clubs there are chefs de cuisine and usually several sous chefs that deal with running the kitchen while the exec performs a very different function (less hands on, more events/offsite marketing/menu development). Being a sous does not, in my opinion, mean that "managing a restaurant" is the next step. There are a million things that management needs to know that cooks don't get the chance to learn in a kitchen, and definitely require accounting and cost control education.
Point being that any place worth working and learning at will either; a) not pay for no experience or b) require you to have some basic kitchen knowledge before stepping in the door, after which you get paid to learn.