FOOD SOLDIERS
Moneyed South Africans are fascinated by fine food, but few give a thought to the battalions of chefs who march in its service. Sue de Groot investigates
EVERYBODY wants to be a chef. Even rats want to be chefs, if you believe the film Ratatouille , which every chef worth his Himalayan rock salt calls the most accurate screen portrayal (minus the rats) of how a restaurant kitchen really works.
There was a time when even rats wouldn’t wear chef’s whites. “When we went into cheffing in the ’80s, it was not a trendy career at all,” says Stephen Billingham, president of the SA Chefs Association and owner of HTA School of Culinary Art in Johannesburg.
“We had problems with our dads, who had problems with other dads at the factory: ‘My boy’s going to cooking school?’ ‘Cooking school? Is he a gay?’ But now TV and other media have made it macho.”
(Let it be noted that there are still relatively few women in this tough industry — that’s a topic for another day.)
Applications to cooking schools in SA have tripled in the past few years, yet “chef ” remains near the top of the government’s national list of scarce skills. This is partly because demand for trained professionals has soared — Billingham points to all the international hotel groups that have entered SA since 1994 — and partly because the reality of cheffing is not what you see on TV.
“Television has raised the profile of chefs but it has also done bad things,” says Billingham. “If you look at Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen or some of the shit with Anthony Bourdain, kids are saying, ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s hip, trendy — tattoos, earrings, nose rings, spiky hair — that’s right down my street.’ But parents are saying, ‘Whoa, I’m not putting my kid in that scenario’.”
In the real world, cheffing is a hard job that pays peanuts at first. “Cooking schools don’t always open onto the land of milk and honey,” says Billingham. “Of the thousands who graduate each year, only a handful will hit the big time.”
Rudi Liebenberg, executive chef at Cape Town’s Mount Nelson hotel and Sunday Times Chef of the Year in 2012, says doctors are likely to see a quicker return on their tuition investment than chefs.
“You could spend R150 000 on 18 months at chef school,” he says, “but you’re still going to start as an assistant: chopping and slicing and cleaning. Our in-house programme takes four years, during which you will spend three months in every single section of the kitchen.”
According to the European brigading tradition followed in SA, these trainees are called commis chefs. A commis earns about R3 500 a month, sometimes less. Stick it out and you might be promoted to chef de partie (French for section), in charge of a slice of production.
“In a hotel, sections might be broken down into room service, banqueting, à la carte, buffet, et cetera,” says Billingham. “Within those sections there is one chef de partie looking after vegetables, one in charge of meat and poultry, one for fish, one for pastry, one for soups and sauces and so on.”
Chefs de partie, who manage the commis chefs and apprentices in their section, earn between R6 500 and R9 500 a month. The next step is sous chef, second in command to the head chef. The sous chef is in charge of the chefs de partie, and the head chef is in charge of everybody. Where more than one kitchen is involved, an executive chef oversees the head chefs.
This hierarchy is not set in stone — our title-crazed world has seen the creation of all sorts of intermediate labels containing the words “demi”, “senior” or “executive” — but it describes the structure of most fine-dining establishments.
Restaurant patrons may have become more knowledgeable about food, but few understand how many skilled people are involved in preparing it. The Mount Nelson employs 32 permanent chefs and 15-20 trainees.
And then there are food costs. Liebenberg buys only the best or- ganic produce. Take the Mount Nelson burger: the meat comes from specific cuts of grass-fed beef, minced and made into patties by a specially trained fabricator in the centralised production section. Sesame buns are made by the hotel’s bakers, who start their shift at 11pm. Gherkins and tomato chutney are made from scratch in the cold-production section.
“We want pickles made here, not from a bottle, because there’s no story to that.” Cheese is sliced from wheels of Healey’s, a local cheddar that has won international awards. All these elements come together under the eye of a sous chef.
“I hate food that tastes ‘hotelly’, with no fresh element,” says Liebenberg. “I will not have food like that here. People understand that water doesn’t just come from a tap, but they don’t apply the same logic to food. They will sometimes ask why it takes 20 minutes to get a burger. When I tell them we’re cooking a freshly made, 200g burger patty, they understand. R120 might sound like a lot to pay for it, but true artistry does not come from taking shortcuts.”
Billingham says the same analysis can be applied to something as simple as butternut soup. “I saw this on a menu a few years back for R79. I know I can go into a supermarket and buy a butternut for about R7, an onion for R1.10, a tub of cream for R9. I can get some salt and pepper, some stock cubes, and make the bloody soup myself for R20. And I’m thinking: where do they get a mark-up that takes it to R79 for 200ml of squash soup? But think about kitchen planning and design, about the equipment that goes into that kitchen, the staff
skills, the overheads — electricity has gone up 300% in the past seven years and the price of gas is constantly going up. Look at maintenance, pest control, fire legislation and training, furniture, fixtures, fittings, computer systems, payroll systems, It’s just bloody endless. Food prices went up by 34% last year alone. If you want better quality, it’s going to cost you more. If you go organic, it’s going to cost you a lot more. Pull all that together and you know where the extra R50 comes in. And then there’s a percentage for waste. You can’t make butternut soup to order, so how many do you make? One service, maybe two services, and then it’s got to go.”
Chefs are not blind to the paradox of a rich person spending more on one meal than a poor family spends on food for a month. Apart from the defence that the industry creates jobs — which it does — most chefs take extreme measures to minimise waste.
“I make everyone keep their vegetable waste at the end of their section, to see what could have been used smarter,” says Liebenberg. “Cauliflower leaves and stalks are finely sliced on a mandolin and pickled for salad. Anything not used goes to the wormery. You have to respect the ingredients. For à la carte, we prepare limited portions, depending on how the dish sells. The waiters get a sheet that says we have so many portions of this or that, and they guide people in their orders. I used to be embarrassed to say I’d run out of something, but
When you’re surrounded by poverty, not wasting food is a huge issue
now not wasting food has become more important to me. When you are surrounded by poverty, it’s a huge issue.”
A master to disciples now working all over the world, Liebenberg projects a remarkably calm demeanour but didn’t always.
“I once threw a tureen of scrambled eggs over a chef who had burnt them. He got over it, but I didn’t. I still get upset if people make stupid mistakes, but I don’t shout. I nurture young people more. You have to trust your team. There are so many variables that can go wrong and you’re working under intense pressure. It’s an adrenaline rush, being able to fix something quickly.”
Constant pressure and long hours, working under a military hierarchy and earning a minimal salary. Why do people become chefs?
“It’s a good job,” says Billingham. “It’s a hobby job. When my generation qualified, we had hotels, restaurants or the military. The opportunities have increased tremendously. There are loads of retail places you can go into, and every celebrity wants a private chef. You get to work with amazing people and products, you’re not stuck in an office, you meet great people and cook for them. The job satisfaction is unbelievable, as are the travel opportunities.”
Billingham is in constant animation, a fiery ambassador for the art of cheffing.
“The salaries are lower than in other sectors,” he says, “but the fruits do come. If you work at a Mount Nelson or a Test Kitchen or an Arabella or a Hilton or a Saxon or a Westcliff, and if you have the right attitude, those first jobs are going to lay the foundation of a career. You could look at it and go, ‘My first job was crap and I earned R3 000 a month,’ but it really is not about the money — it’s about the references obtained. I tell these kids they are students to the trade for at least the first three to five years. You can get a Mickey Mouse job at a Mickey Mouse restaurant. You can change jobs every month for a few more rands, but a quality hotel chef won’t even consider giving you a favourable reference unless you’ve given him at least 18 months. You have to have that substance or you won’t play in the premier league.”
At the top, salaries vary widely. Executive chefs at hotels usually receive some sort of package that may include accommodation or other incentives. Some places may pay bonuses based on keeping costs down. The owner of a consistently successful restaurant can earn the equivalent of an executive in the corporate sector but there is always risk.
“I haven’t worked for 25 years with all the associated stress in order to not make a living,” says Luke Dale-Roberts of The Test Kitchen in Woodstock.
“We are now booked ahead for three months at a time, which is great because it gives you the se-
So-called ‘experts’ know nothing about food — they’re just frikkin’ bloggers
curity to plan your menu and your budget. But if bookings had to drop drastically, we’d be in trouble.”
Because of the skills shortage, a graduate fresh out of chef school could take a job at a small, upmarket game lodge or boutique hotel where, because he is the only one with a formal qualification, he will be given the title of head chef. But should he return to the regimented world of big-city haute cuisine, he may go right back to the bottom.
“Chefs are very skilled when they leave here,” says Liebenberg of the Mount Nelson’s development programme. “They receive all-round, on-the-job training. A few stay, but most move on to bigger things. It is important to constantly invest in your staff.”
Billingham likens the kitchen brigading structure to a football team. “You have to keep it fresh, you’ve got to keep youth coming through the whole time. Chefs at that level will trade like team managers: ‘I’m going to give you a sous chef, but you have a chef de partie that I can use.’ It’s a brotherhood.”
Opening your own restaurant is no picnic, however. “Unless you have a backer, a financial cushion, it’s a huge risk,” says Liebenberg. “For the most basic restaurant, you will need R2-million to start off, then there are staff costs, food costs … it’s going to be a long time until you take any money home. This is why so many restaurants open and close a few months later.”
Dale-Roberts financed The Test Kitchen (now number 48 on the San Pellegrino list of the world’s best restaurants) with money he and his wife had saved while working overseas. “When we opened, it was me and three other chefs doing 24 covers (ie patrons), with just two waiters and a daytime assistant,” he says. “We were lucky that we were full from the start.”
Five years later, he employs 19 chefs who prepare food for 55 covers at The Test Kitchen, and has also opened the Pot Luck Club, a more casual establishment in the same precinct. When you take staff and food costs into account (food is 40% of outlay), the price of The Test Kitchen’s tasting menu (R695 for five memorable courses, including wine pairing) no longer seems steep.
“It boils down to the number of people it takes to create a unique dining experience,” says DaleRoberts. “Everyone places different value on different things. If you place value on eating well, you will understand and enjoy this experience. One plate has been worked on by about seven chefs. There are 12 components to a dish, and it could take one person eight hours to complete just one element of that dish.”
But you still get critics. “Social media has become the most dangerous thing for restaurants,” says Liebenberg. “The era of true food critics has gone — people who you respected, who could write honestly about food. Now you have so-called ‘experts’ who know nothing about food — they’re just frikkin’ bloggers. They write about something on Twitter or Facebook or TripAdvisor, and they have no idea what it takes to make that food. They are so far removed from the life of a chef. I say to people, go and watch the movie Ratatouille , go and really watch it.”