The world’s best 50 restaurants list was released this week and it got me thinking. With the EU referendum imminently looming how many of the restaurants are from Britain and how many from Europe?
The restaurants are located all over the world including New York, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Singapore, China, and Japan. A lot of the restaurants on the lists are EU countries such as Spain, France, Denmark, Italy, Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Sweden. In the 50 best restaurants I would say there is about a 50/50 split of jobs between European countries and the rest of the world.
I think that it is amazing to be a part of Europe which has all of these amazing chefs including Britain with the likes of Isaac Mchale (Scottish) at Clove Club, Ashley Palmer Watts at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal and Brett Graham at The Ledbury to name a few.
Some of the amazing European chefs listed on there include Massimo Bottura from Osteria Francescana in Italy. One of my favourite books and a chef that oozes real passion for his ingredients such as his famous Five Ages of Parmigiano Reggiano which explores the region’s amazing cheese via temperature, texture and taste.
Next up on the list is Celler de San Roca which is run by the famous Roca brothers and situated in Catalunya, north east of Barcelona. The brothers are very well respected in the culinary industry.
At number 5 is the famous Noma which is owned by Rene Redzepi. The restaurant which is in Denmark, focuses on foraged food. Rene Redzepi plans to close the restaurant at the end of the year so if you want to go to this one you need to get in quick.
Back to spain at number 21 is the famous Arzak in the famous san Sebastian region, an area which has the most Michelin stars in the world. Run by Juan Mari and is being taken over by his daughter Elena.
At number 50 is Septime situated in Paris and one of its most talked about addresses. Run by chef-owner Bertrand Grebaut.
Have any of our chefs been too or worked at any of the restaurants on this list? http://www.theworlds50best.com/list/1-50-winners#t21-30
Who in your opinion is the greatest European chef?
This week I have been thinking about the different positions and levels in the kitchen.
The head chef looks after the day-to-day running of the kitchen including ordering, stock control, menu planning and health and safety and hygiene and all the relevant paper work of the kitchen.
The sous chef is responsible for this on the head chef’s days off.
A chef de partie is responsible for their own section in the kitchen and should be able to jump around all the sections, a useful skill to have.
A commis chef is the most junior position in the kitchen. Usually either fresh out of college or school, or with little experience or should be given direction and instruction from the more senior members of the kitchen.
My question is how much can these positions overlap and how difficult are they do understand by people who don’t have any experience of working in a kitchen be that a hotelier or a chef just starting out.
We have had some instances of places looking for commis chefs when in fact they need someone with more experience who can cover on the main chef’s days off. And equally ask for a sous chef when they really just need a reliable pair of hands.
How do these positions vary on the size of the kitchen?
We have many different cuisines in the UK which have come from other countries such as Poland, Spain, India, China, Greece, France, Turkey, Italy, Thailand and Japan just to name a few. But how much of an influence is this in the UK?
Many of the high street brands of restaurants resonate from other cultures for example Jamie’s Italian, Zizzi’s, Wagamama, Nando’s, La Tasca and Las Iguanas. We all have our local Chinese and Indian restaurants as well but how far derived from the original cuisine. It’s a well-known fact that most of the dishes in an Indian restaurant such as the British favourite Tikka Masala, aren’t dishes you would find in India. It has been developed for the British palate as it is less spicy.
I think what has really come in recently is the influence of Eastern European cuisine such as Poland and Hungary. It is so much easier nowadays to get ingredients of different cuisines just in your local supermarket. There isn’t the necessity for the specialised food shops. In every supermarket there is a Chinese, polish, Japanese, Thai and Indian section at least. Some of the larger supermarkets stock a bigger range of foods from around the world.
I personally love Greek food as I love how fresh everything tastes. What is your favourite food from another culture?
Availability of Chefs in Scotland 23rd May 2016
Availability of permanent head chefs is getting tighter and whilst employers may get 1 to 3 good to decent candidates, they are unlikely to get a stream of head chef candidates.
There are more candidates in central Scotland if paying good money in excess of £28,000 and upwards.
In rural Scotland and particularly for 2AA Rosette country house hotels relevant candidates are scarce. Skye, Shetland Islands and rural Argyll, it is proving hard to get relevant candidates despite the payment of good money. (about £35,000 for 2AA Rosette head chef)
Suggest paying £27,000 upwards to £40,000 according to requirements and demands of the job. Ideally we advise for a five day week and over-time paid on a pro rata basis for extra days worked and for hours in excess of 45 to 48 on a pro rata basis.
For seasonal head chef jobs suggest £120 per day or £600 per week with end of season bonus for completion.
Aberdeenshire, Dundee and East coast, there are a few Head Chefs registered although as the oil price increases so the demand for chefs is increasing rapidly.
Inverness and the highlands of Scotland mainland pay good money with good accommodation and you will get some decent candidates unless you are 2AA Rosette or 3AA Rosette in which case it may be a bit tight.
Head Chefs are being put off jobs that offer set wage for 5 or 6 days per week and are preferring to work 5 day weeks or if six paid by the day. For instance, you can look at £500 to £600 for a five day week and a further £100 to £120 for the sixth day with overtime for five days being paid pro rata at over 45 or 48 hours sanctioned by management.
In rural Scotland we are advising offering live in also, ideally at no charge to the chef.
Ideally this will get candidates with verifiable work histories and often well known to Chefs In Scotland. Below and the quality will be hit or miss.
3AA Rosette head chefs (suggest £35,000 to £45,000) can be scarce, some 2AA (suggest £27,000 to £35,000) and happy to look.
The more central, the more candidates you will expect to get and the more rural, the harder it can get.
We are happy to meet chefs to discuss at our interview room here in Moffat and also hoteliers and restaurateurs.
Availability of chefs at sous chef, chef de partie and commis chef level. Also relief chefs.
Sous chefs
If it is a live in position for 4 star hotel suggest paying £24,000 to £30,000.
In central areas such as Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth Stirling can try live-out.
More rural availability including Aberdeen and Inverness hire is becoming difficult, there are some candidates about but this is getting tighter as we are now into the season. The quality of candidates is mixed and trying to get a good sous chef is very difficult.
2AA Rosettes and are quite scarce. Suggest wages of £26,000 - £28,000 upwards to £30,000 for 3AA Rosette sous chef.
A good way to attract candidates is to pay hourly rates for every hour worked by chefs.
For sous chefs suggest £11 to £14 per hour this will help to attract and retain good candidates.
If paying salaried, we suggest five day week with overtime pro rata over 45 or 48 hours.
We also suggest thinking of more innovative ideas with regards to time off for example 4 days on 3 off or 1 weekend off in 3.
Chef de parties
Availability currently ok in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perthshire and central belt.
Availability is becoming much tighter in rural Scotland even if offering accommodation.
There are some chefs looking for live in accommodation and may be happy to relocate.
£19,000 for a 45 hour week works out £8.11 an hour which is on the low side. Suggest paying up to £22,000 or hourly rate £8.50 - £12 per hour with live in accommodation at a small charge. We would hope you will get decent candidates with this.
There are issues with staff retention in rural Scotland and we are happy to give advice to hoteliers and meet them to discuss at our offices in Moffat. We would charge a fee for this.
Commis chefs
A few bodies available. Suggest £15,000 live in or out. Or minimum wage. Which is £7.20 as of April this year.
Age 18 to 20 the minimum wage will still be £5.30 per hour.
Pastry a few available happy to have a look
For perm we can look if pay “fee of interest” or advertise
Relief
Currently quite tight this week better from early June, although can change daily but we update our database on a daily basis and very happy to look if you are paid up to date with us.
Happy to advertise all positions or us to look with “Fee of Interest”. Us taking a “Fee of Interest” is no guarantee you will get many candidates as the amount of candidates is driven by the merits and location of the job.
23rd May 2016
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I started working for Chefs In Scotland in February this year and have been undertaking a wide variety of work in the 3 months I have been with the company. My name is Alannah Morrison and I am from Borrisdale on the Isle of Harris. I first moved to Moffat in 2012 before heading back home to Harris for 6 months for the winter months.
Moving from an island to the mainland does make you realise the differences between where I grew up to where I am now living. Moffat is a small town, just off the motorway and hidden away yet it is so central to go anywhere you want. The Isle of Harris on the other hand is again hidden away, remote and a lot of coastline and beaches. I would definitely say that anybody who has an opportunity to go and work in Harris is very lucky.
In the time I have been with Chefs In Scotland I have been getting training on adverts, permanent and relief chef placements and generally being shown the ins and outs of how chef recruitment works. Last week a hotel in Harris got in touch looking for us to look for a permanent Sous chef to join their team, which Jessica and Johanna in the office then passed on to me which gave me my first opportunity to have a search for my first possible permanent chef placement.
I first put my pin in the map on the wall; I then wrote down the name of the establishment in my daily book and began my search for any good candidates. I used our database of permanent chefs to first search for any sous chefs that were happy to be placed anywhere and then secondly the ones that had availability marked as yes. This search resulted in 6 candidates that we had actively available on our database.
I searched through the names and also the comments on previous jobs they had done, the grading we at Chefs In Scotland had given them as well as what previous references we had on them. This search resulted in my finding a candidate who was new to Chefs In Scotland who had applied for a position in Orkney and who I had taken 2 excellent references for once he had applied.
I phoned the candidate to let them know about the position and asked would they like to be put over for which they said yes to. I sent his CV over to the hotel along with the references I had for him. I then marked this down in the CV sent book and waited on the hotel to reply. The hotel replied later on that afternoon that they would be interested in offering him a trial and my next task was to go back to the candidate and ask would they be interested in a trial. The candidate had made a decision when I phoned that while they were interested in Harris, they would like to hold out for the Orkney job as that was their first choice and an area they would prefer to work in.
This showed me that chef recruitment is a fast paced environment and a lot of time and effort goes into finding permanent chefs. The next step for us at Chefs In Scotland is to let the establishment know that the candidate has declined and we will do our best to find someone else - then it’s back to putting that pin up in the wall to repeat the process all over again.
Jessica, our recruitment consultant found another candidate who was well suited to the job and all being well they will be heading to the beautiful Isle of Harris at the beginning of June for a month’s trial.
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