More challenges: hierarchy in the kitchen

What challenges have you faced during your career?

The diploma did have its challenges. We had to cook a 5 course meal and we had it judged by industry chefs. We also have two 3 hour exams that we have to sit. We have a dessert assessment, we have a 3 course assessment, and so, just doing the diploma itself is a challenge. I think I have a lot more challenges to face.

There is quite a hierarchy in the industry, when you first start you are right at the bottom. Obviously I know that I’m at the bottom, because I’ve just started. I’ve got heaps to learn but you just have to get past that, and you know if you work hard you will move up, and be at the top bossing around other people.

In New Zealand you’ll find if you go on and become chefs, I think the hardest part is overseas, especially in Europe. There is a hierarchy in the kitchen, and it’s pretty strict. I’ve sent a guy from Zibibbo to work at Le Gavroche which is where I worked with the Roux brothers in London. He has been there 18 months and he is coming back in October. He was a Nelson boy, and he just could not believe how different it was. In New Zealand you will have the chef barking at you all day if you are doing things wrong. But if you go to Europe, you’re at the bottom. I think that was the hardest part for me, walking into a kitchen and realising that it was like being in a fish pond with sharks. Everyone was kind of out to make you look bad. You can take it on as negative to begin with, but once you realise that you’ve got to be strong, motivated, and you’ve got to stick at it, you very quickly become one of the sharks, I guess.

What it it’s about, is if you can work for a year or two years for an establishment like Gordon Ramsay’s (he’s got, I believe, about 13 different hotels in his chain), or for people like the Roux brothers at Le Gavroche, you can work for anybody.