Chef’s table NZ

  A recipe is a set of instructions. A dish is what happens when someone actually understands why those instructions exist. Most home cooks — and a fair few line cooks — spend years following recipes without ever crossing into the second category, and it's not a knowledge gap. It's a different relationship to the food entirely. A Recipe Tells You What. A Dish Requires Knowing Why Follow a recipe exactly and you'll usually get something edible. Sear the protein for four minutes, reduce the sauce by half, rest for five. What a recipe can't tell you is why four minutes on this cut, in this pan, on this particular day. Pan heat varies, cut thickness varies, even the humidity in the room changes how something browns. A recipe gives you a starting instruction. A dish comes from knowing when to deviate from it. Recipes Are Written for a Kitchen That Doesn't Exist Every recipe assumes ideal conditions — the exact ingredient, the right equipment, a cook who's made it a h...

  I've already written about whether culinary school is worth the money. Short version: it can help, but it's not the only door in. Plenty of chefs I've worked alongside — some of the best ones — never set foot in a culinary classroom. Here's the actual path, if school isn't the one you're taking. Step 1: Get in, any way you can Nobody starts as a chef. You start as a kitchen hand or commis, washing, prepping, watching. The title doesn't matter in year one. Getting inside a working kitchen does. Apply everywhere. Cafes, pubs, hotel kitchens, catering companies. Don't hold out for the fine-dining dream job on day one — you're not ready for it yet, and neither is your CV. Step 2: Show up early, leave late, ask questions This sounds simple because it is. Kitchens run on trust before they run on talent. The person who turns up fifteen minutes early and stays to help clean down gets taught things the person who clocks in at the buzzer never will. Ask a ch...

 Every few weeks someone messages me asking the same thing: "I want to work in a New Zealand kitchen — should I come on a working holiday or try to get sponsored?" There's no shortage of visa guides online. Immigration lawyers, migration agencies, travel blogs — they'll all give you the dates, the fees, the age limits. What they won't tell you is what actually happens once you're standing in a kitchen with that visa in your pocket. That's the part I can help with. Why I don't hire working holiday visa holders I'll be straight with you, because nobody else will be: most head chefs I know, myself included, actively avoid hiring WHV holders. Here's why. Your visa gives you twelve months in the country, but I only get you for three, maybe six, before you're legally required to move on. Training a cook properly — getting them fast on a section, trusting them with service — takes longer than that. By the time you're actually useful, you'r...

  I get asked this more than almost anything else. Usually by someone standing at a fork in the road — finish school and go to culinary school, or do something "sensible" instead. I'm not going to give you a yes or no. I'm going to give you what nobody gave me. The honest cost side Long hours. Weekends gone. Christmas and New Year's Eve — some of the busiest nights of your working life, not your personal one. Your feet will hurt in ways you didn't know feet could hurt. You will get burned, cut, and yelled at, sometimes all in the same service. The pay, especially early on, will not reflect the effort. I've written before about what chefs actually earn in NZ — the short version is that the title looks better than the payslip for the first several years. Relationships take a hit too. Not everyone understands a partner who's never free on a Saturday night. The honest reward side There's a version of satisfaction you only get from finishing a service w...

  Every hospitality job ad says it. "Must be passionate about food." "Looking for passionate individuals." It's on every listing, every careers page, every induction pack. And every time I read it, I think the same thing: passion is not what gets you through a Saturday double. I'm not saying passion doesn't matter. It does, somewhere in there. But it's not the thing doing the actual work, and pretending it is has done real damage to how this industry treats people. Passion doesn't survive contact with a bad shift.  is what gets you into the industry. It's the reason you signed up for culinary school, or took that first kitchen job instead of something easier. It's real, and it matters at the start. But passion doesn't clean the grill trap at 1am. It doesn't stand you back up after you've burned your forearm and there's still two hours of service left. It doesn't get you through the fifth split shift in a row when you...

  People throw the word "chef" around like it just means someone who cooks well. It doesn't. Cooking well gets you in the door. Running a section is a completely different skill, and almost nobody explains it properly before you're standing there on your first solo shift wondering why you're drowning. I want to break down what actually changes when you go from "cook who's good at their job" to "person responsible for a section," because the gap is bigger than most people expect. Cooking and running a section are different jobs. When you're a junior, your job is simple: execute the dish in front of you, well, on time. That's hard enough on its own. But running a section means you're not just cooking anymore — you're managing a system. You're tracking six, eight, ten dishes at different stages simultaneously, predicting when tickets are going to stack, and adjusting before it becomes a problem instead of after. The cooking...

I've worked with hundreds of people in professional kitchens over the past two decades. Some of them were talented. Some were fast. Some could break down a whole fish in under three minutes or turn out perfect brunoise without thinking. But the ones I actually wanted to keep? They weren't always the most skilled. They were the ones who made the kitchen work. There's a version of this job that people imagine before they start. You show up, you cook, you learn some knife skills, maybe you get yelled at a bit, and eventually you become a chef. That's not how it works. The kitchen runs on people who do the things nobody asked them to do. Who see the low mise en place and fill it before service without being told. Who clean as they go not because the head chef is watching but because they understand why it matters. Who show up on time — actually on time, not walking-through-the-door-at-start-time — ready to work. That's it. That's most of it. Skills can be taught. I...

  Everyone who's ever gotten a compliment on their roast has thought about it. Maybe I could do this professionally. And look, I get it. Cooking a beautiful meal for people you love is satisfying. It should be. But let me be straight with you — that has almost nothing to do with being a chef. Here's the reality. In a professional kitchen, you're not cooking for five people who love you. You're cooking for a hundred people who don't know you, don't care about your process, and want their food hot, on time, and exactly the same as the table next to them ordered. Saturday night. Full cover. Every section firing at once. That's the job. Passion gets you through the door. Consistency keeps you employed. Fast hands don't mean a sharp mind. Another one I see constantly — cooks who move like they're on fire but leave chaos behind them. Mis-labelled containers. Prep done in the wrong order. A station that looks like a war zone by 7pm. Speed matters, but speed...

Everyone who wants to become a chef eventually asks the same question: do I need to go to culinary school? It sounds straightforward, but the honest answer is — it depends. And nobody seems to want to say that out loud. I've worked in professional kitchens for years. I've seen chefs who came through culinary school and chefs who came up entirely through the ranks. Both can be exceptional. Both can be completely useless. The piece of paper doesn't decide that. So let's actually break it down. What Culinary School in NZ Looks Like In New Zealand, the main pathways are through institutions like NZMA, Le Cordon Bleu (Auckland and Wellington), AUT, and various polytechnics offering Level 3 and Level 4 culinary certificates. Courses range from six months to two years, and fees vary widely — from around $5,000 for a certificate programme to upwards of $30,000–$40,000 for a full diploma at a private institution. That's a significant investment. And before you sign anything,...

 When I became a head chef, I thought I was ready. I'd spent years as a sous chef — running sections, covering service, stepping up when the head chef was away. I knew the kitchen. I knew the food. I thought the next step was just more of the same, with a bigger title and a bit more authority. I was wrong. The gap between sous chef and head chef is one of the most misunderstood transitions in the industry. From the outside it looks like a natural progression. From the inside, it feels like starting over in a completely different job. Here's what I wish someone had told me. 1. You stop being a cook. You become a manager. As a sous chef, your identity is still tied to the food. You're hands-on every service. The craft is yours to own. As a head chef, the job shifts beneath your feet. You spend more time thinking about your people than your plates. Who's struggling. Who's about to quit. Who's causing tension and how to deal with it before it hits service. The best ...

 Let me guess. You watched a cooking show, maybe a documentary, maybe even a movie like Boiling Point — and something clicked. The energy, the creativity, the passion. You thought, yeah, I want to do that. And honestly? I get it. I've been there. But after 20-plus years in professional kitchens, I want to have an honest conversation with you. Not to put you off — but because I wish someone had told me this when I was starting out. The TV version vs the real version On TV, kitchens look electric and glamorous. The chef is cool under pressure, the food is beautiful, and everyone goes home happy. In reality? You're on your feet for 12–14 hours. The kitchen is hot — like, really hot. You'll miss birthdays, weekends, Christmas dinners, and New Year's Eve with your family. While everyone else is celebrating, you're behind a pass making sure their celebration looks perfect. That's just Tuesday. The physical toll is real Your back will hurt. Your feet will hurt. You...