Culinary chef vs culinary specialist

The differences between culinary chefs and culinary specialists can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a culinary chef has an average salary of $49,417, which is higher than the $37,641 average annual salary of a culinary specialist.

The top three skills for a culinary chef include culinary, fine dining and food service. The most important skills for a culinary specialist are kitchen equipment, culinary, and food safety.

Culinary chef vs culinary specialist overview

	Culinary Chef	Culinary Specialist
Yearly salary	$49,417	$37,641
Hourly rate	$23.76	$18.10
Growth rate	15%	15%
Number of jobs	20,066	41,696
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Associate Degree, 46%	High School Diploma, 37%
Average age	42	37
Years of experience	6	-

Culinary chef vs culinary specialist salary

Culinary chefs and culinary specialists have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Culinary Chef	Culinary Specialist
Average salary	$49,417	$37,641
Salary range	Between $34,000 And $70,000	Between $23,000 And $60,000
Highest paying City	-	-
Highest paying state	-	-
Best paying company	-	-
Best paying industry	-	-

Differences between culinary chef and culinary specialist education

There are a few differences between a culinary chef and a culinary specialist in terms of educational background:

	Culinary Chef	Culinary Specialist
Most common degree	Associate Degree, 46%	High School Diploma, 37%
Most common major	Culinary Arts	Culinary Arts
Most common college	Boston University	-

Culinary chef vs culinary specialist demographics

Here are the differences between culinary chefs' and culinary specialists' demographics:

	Culinary Chef	Culinary Specialist
Average age	42	37
Gender ratio	Male, 63.9% Female, 36.1%	Male, 71.8% Female, 28.2%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 11.0% Unknown, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino, 17.3% Asian, 11.3% White, 54.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7%	Black or African American, 11.7% Unknown, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino, 17.4% Asian, 7.0% White, 57.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.9%
LGBT Percentage	9%	10%

Differences between culinary chef and culinary specialist duties and responsibilities

Culinary chef example responsibilities.

Manage a kitchen of military personal and Japanese civilian chefs.
Provide informative culinary instruction and product knowledge to create exceptional customer experiences.
Balance emerging trends and culinary creativity with cost, utilization and operational execution.
Develop seasonal menus focusing on classical French cuisine with consideration to customer base, product availability and cost.
Develop and open a USDA inspect production facility.

Culinary specialist example responsibilities.

Manage and lead a HACCP plan for the restaurant.
Manage user securities, roles, database backups, restore, fail-over management for SQL cluster.
Help maintain haccp records, and all sanitation rules.
Set up the batter cart, fryers, and chicken holding cabinet and collect all necessary small wares.
Design and fabricate menu items for guests with gluten sensitivitys, sulfates allergies, and low fat constraints.
Provide meals for patients with food allergies, food sensitivities, diseases and those revolving from surgical procedures, and pediatrics.

Culinary chef vs culinary specialist skills

Common culinary chef skills

Culinary, 30%
Fine Dining, 10%
Food Service, 8%
Cuisine, 7%
Kitchen Equipment, 6%
Recipe Development, 4%

Common culinary specialist skills

Kitchen Equipment, 16%
Culinary, 16%
Food Safety, 12%
Patients, 11%
Cleanliness, 7%
Food Storage, 4%

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Culinary Chef vs Culinary Specialist

Updated January 8, 2025

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