A cooking chef oversees all people performing kitchen duties under their mandate. These professionals oversee timeliness, sanitary issues, ingredient preparation, meal preparation, and final presentations. Besides engaging in menu planning and creating recipes, a cooking chef also performs several administrative tasks from one day to another. They place supply orders, track inventory, calculate payroll, calculate costs, and handle complaints from the employee or customer. Moreover, a cooking chef trains the kitchen staff to ensure they perform their duties correctly.

Cooking Chef Responsibilities

Here are examples of responsibilities from real cooking chef resumes representing typical tasks they are likely to perform in their roles.

  • Manage a kitchen of military personal and Japanese civilian chefs.
  • Assist culinary instructor in food preparation.
  • Cook foods by baking, roasting, broiling, frying, saut? ing, steaming, grilling.
  • Travel to various locations throughout the city to perform culinary task.
  • Obtain in-depth experience working on grills, ranges, and steamers.
  • Experience with baking, broiling, frying, roasting and grilling.
  • Load dishwashers and hand-wash items such as pots, pans, knives.
  • Operate stoves, food processors, steamers, slicers, and ovens.
  • Produce large batch cooking recipes for the commissary kitchen, following strict HACCP systems.
  • Adjust thermostat controls to regulate temperature of ovens, broilers, grills, fryers and steam kettles
  • Make sure that allergies are taken care of in the right manner and with the correct substitutions.
  • Maintain kitchen cleanliness, inventory and equipment.
  • Create and prepare international cuisine for executive clientele by using ingenuity, organization, efficiency in production and attention to detail
  • Start as dishwasher and then become a cook soon after.
  • Provide leadership that promotes and exemplifies excellent customer service.

Cooking Chef Skills and Personality Traits

We calculated that 23% of Cooking Chefs are proficient in Food Service, Food Handling, and Kitchen Equipment. They’re also known for soft skills such as Business skills, Communication skills, and Creativity.

We break down the percentage of Cooking Chefs that have these skills listed on their resume here:

  • Food Service, 23%

    Conducted and encouraged multiple teams of staff to maintain efficiency and safety in their food service duties.

  • Food Handling, 19%

    Supervised, coordinated, and participated in activities of cooks and other food handling personnel.

  • Kitchen Equipment, 16%

    Provided preventative and scheduled maintenance for kitchen equipment.

  • Culinary, 10%

    Assisted culinary instructor in food preparation.

  • Cleanliness, 9%

    Maintain proper order and cleanliness of facility

  • Dishwashers, 7%

    Started as dishwasher and then became a cook soon after.

Some of the skills we found on cooking chef resumes included "food service," "food handling," and "kitchen equipment." We have detailed the most important cooking chef responsibilities below.

  • Business skills can be considered to be the most important personality trait for a cooking chef to have. According to a cooking chef resume, "executive chefs and chefs who run their own restaurant need to understand the restaurant business" cooking chefs are able to use business skills in the following example we gathered from a resume: "teach new consultants food preparation, computer applications, data and time management skills to help them with their businesses. "
  • Another commonly found skill for being able to perform cooking chef duties is the following: communication skills. According to a cooking chef resume, "chefs must communicate their instructions clearly and effectively to staff so that customers’ orders are prepared correctly." Check out this example of how cooking chefs use communication skills: "prepared a daily variety of nutritious meals maintained inventory and ordered food and kitchen equipment excel at organization and communication"
  • Cooking chefs are also known for creativity, which can be critical when it comes to performing their duties. An example of why this skill is important is shown by this snippet that we found in a cooking chef resume: "chefs and head cooks need to be creative in order to develop and prepare interesting and innovative recipes" We also found this resume example that details how this skill is put to the test: "maintained kitchen cleanliness, inventory and equipment. "
  • A thorough review of lots of resumes revealed to us that "dexterity" is important to completing cooking chef responsibilities. This resume example shows just one way cooking chefs use this skill: "chefs and head cooks need excellent dexterity, including proper knife techniques for cutting, chopping, and dicing." Here's an example of how this skill is used from a resume that represents typical cooking chef tasks: "prepped ingredientsfor cooking supervised 10-20 team membersin food preparation cooked some forklift use"
  • Yet another important skill that a cooking chef must demonstrate is "leadership skills." Chefs and head cooks must have the ability to motivate kitchen staff and develop constructive and cooperative working relationships with them. This is clearly demonstrated in this example from a cooking chef who stated: "provided leadership in all culinary skills including preparation, quality control, safety, and sanitation customer service. "
  • While "physical stamina" is listed last on this skills list, don't underestimate its importance to cooking chef responsibilities. The skill is described by this resume snippet, "chefs and head cooks often work long shifts and sometimes spend entire evenings on their feet, overseeing the preparation and serving of meals." Here is an example of how this skill is used, "maintain daily food use records and conduct monthly physical food inventory. "
  • See the full list of cooking chef skills.

    The three companies that hire the most prestigious cooking chefs are:

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    What Food Service Workers Do

    Foodservice workers are employees at restaurants, food trucks, or any outlet that provides food to customers. They may be assigned to welcome customers, take food orders, prepare food orders in the kitchen, serve food, handle customer payments, clean up the tables once the guests leave, or maintain the whole store's cleanliness. They may also be assigned to manage inventories, handle stocks and deliveries, and other activities related to the restaurant's successful operations. Foodservice workers must always be hygienic and maintain the sanitation of the area to ensure food safety.

    In this section, we compare the average cooking chef annual salary with that of a food service worker. Typically, food service workers earn a $6,220 lower salary than cooking chefs earn annually.

    While their salaries may differ, one common ground between cooking chefs and food service workers are a few of the skills required in each craft. In both careers, employees bring forth skills like food service, food handling, and kitchen equipment.

    These skill sets are where the common ground ends though. A cooking chef responsibility is more likely to require skills like "mixers," "nursing home," "quality standards," and "cooking meals." Whereas a food service worker requires skills like "customer service," "patients," "pet," and "cash control." Just by understanding these different skills you can see how different these careers are.

    Food service workers really shine in the retail industry with an average salary of $30,177. Whereas cooking chefs tend to make the most money in the health care industry with an average salary of $36,189.

    Food service workers tend to reach similar levels of education than cooking chefs. In fact, food service workers are 2.2% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.4% less likely to have a Doctoral Degree.

    What Are The Duties Of a Food Service Associate?

    A food service associate performs fundamental functions in the food industry. Food service associates prepare and serve food items. They cater to special events, which involve facility preparation, food presentation maintenance, and setting up tables. Their duties include cleaning preparation and service equipment. They restock the work stations for the essential supplies. The skills they need to perform their job include customer service, teamwork, work with diverse cultural, ethnic, and academic backgrounds, and learn safety and health regulations.

    Next up, we have the food service associate profession to look over. This career brings along a lower average salary when compared to a cooking chef annual salary. In fact, food service associates salary difference is $3,331 lower than the salary of cooking chefs per year.

    Not everything about these jobs is different. Take their skills, for example. Cooking chefs and food service associates both include similar skills like "food handling," "kitchen equipment," and "culinary" on their resumes.

    While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, several resumes showed us that cooking chef responsibilities requires skills like "food service," "steamers," "mixers," and "nursing home." But a food service associate might use skills, such as, "patients," "excellent interpersonal," "math," and "sanitation standards."

    It's been discovered that food service associates earn lower salaries compared to cooking chefs, but we wanted to find out where food service associates earned the most pay. The answer? The technology industry. The average salary in the industry is $33,477. Additionally, cooking chefs earn the highest paychecks in the health care with an average salary of $36,189.

    On the topic of education, food service associates earn similar levels of education than cooking chefs. In general, they're 1.4% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.4% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

    How a Chef De Cuisine Compares

    A chef de cuisine, also known as an executive chef, oversees a kitchen's daily operations in public and private establishments to ensure food quality and efficient services. Their duties require cooking and leadership skills because they involve leading menu development and meal preparation, coordinating staff, delegating responsibilities, selecting and sourcing ingredients, and handling customer issues and concerns promptly and professionally. Moreover, a chef de cuisine leads and empowers staff to reach the kitchen's daily goals while implementing health standards and regulations.

    The chef de cuisine profession generally makes a higher amount of money when compared to the average salary of cooking chefs. The difference in salaries is chef de cuisines making $16,953 higher than cooking chefs.

    By looking over several cooking chefs and chef de cuisines resumes, we found that both roles utilize similar skills, such as "food service," "food handling," and "kitchen equipment." But beyond that the careers look very different.

    As mentioned, these two careers differ between other skills that are required for performing the work exceedingly well. For example, gathering from cooking chefs resumes, they are more likely to have skills like "mixers," "nursing home," "safety standards," and "food products." But a chef de cuisine might have skills like "customer service," "menu development," "food safety," and "wine."

    Chef de cuisines make a very good living in the hospitality industry with an average annual salary of $53,893. Whereas cooking chefs are paid the highest salary in the health care industry with the average being $36,189.

    Chef de cuisines are known to earn similar educational levels when compared to cooking chefs. Additionally, they're 1.0% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.4% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

    Description Of an Assistant Cook

    The fourth career we look at typically earns lower pay than cooking chefs. On average, assistant cooks earn a difference of $729 lower per year.

    While their salaries may vary, cooking chefs and assistant cooks both use similar skills to perform their jobs. Resumes from both professions include skills like "food service," "food handling," and "kitchen equipment. "

    Each job requires different skills like "mixers," "nursing home," "quality standards," and "food quality," which might show up on a cooking chef resume. Whereas assistant cook might include skills like "dishes," "customer service," "patients," and "harvest."

    In general, assistant cooks make a higher salary in the hospitality industry with an average of $35,456. The highest cooking chef annual salary stems from the health care industry.

    Assistant cooks reach similar levels of education when compared to cooking chefs. The difference is that they're 2.3% more likely to earn a Master's Degree less, and 0.3% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.