Where have all the cooks gone?
厨师们都去哪里了？
在芝加哥餐厅业主的小圈子内存在着一个大部分用餐者都没有发现的普遍问题。同厨师们交流过程中这一点就能得到证实，貌似这个问题被提及的越来越频繁。
这儿有一个例子：几周前，One Off Hospitality的厨师Paul Kahan在富尔顿市场（Fulton Market）偶遇了一位厨师朋友Chris Pandel。The Bristol and Balena餐厅的Pandel正在为他位于新的谷歌大楼内的即将开张的牛排餐厅Armour & Swift公开招聘烹饪职位。那天，Pandel收到了12份简历，有10份都是很有希望的申请人。“这比我想象的多，”他表示，“5年前，我可能只会指望有四分之三的潜在申请者。”
Kahan在西环（West Loop）经营若干家餐厅，毫不客气地对Pandel说道：“你有两个多余的厨师，送到我这里来吧？”
Pandel笑道：“是的，但是不可能。”
问问芝加哥的厨师和餐厅业主，他们都会同样抱怨：他们的厨房里急需厨师。
Next餐厅的Dave Beran表示，他有2个今天可以直接入职的厨师职位空缺。
GT Fish & Oyster餐厅的Giuseppe Tentori表示他能够聘用4名今天入职的厨师。
Kevin Hickey，管理Rockit Ranch帝国旗下餐厅，包括布里奇波特（Bridgeport）The Duck Inn餐厅，说道他需要11个今天入职的厨师。
国家餐厅协会（National Restaurant Association）在其2015年行业预测报告当中简洁地总结道：“2014年酒店行业中职位空缺急剧增长，这一发展与招聘的速度并不同步。”
Kahan说道：“直截了当点讲，如果好的厨师来了，即使我们没有空缺我们也会聘用他。因为我们未来会有职位空缺的。”
尽管蜂蜜、珊瑚礁和加州降雨的消失如此神秘莫测。对用餐者的影响？在经营最好的餐厅里，即使他们感受到了危机，你们可能也看不到这一点；在高压力的服务环境下厨房总是能很好地适应。在经营不太好的餐厅，很难说员工短缺是否影响到了美食品质。不管怎样，或许没有比在这个时候更适合追寻美食烹饪职业生涯的时期了……尽管刚开始薪水不高，但是你努力工作总是会达到更好的高度。
针对这个问题并没有明确的答案，“所有的厨师都去哪儿了呢？”，但是却有许多依据可说：
出现了更多的餐厅
首先一点非常简单，如今比以往有更多的餐厅，比过去10年增长了25%。根据国家餐厅协会的数据，2005年，伊利诺伊州拥有21,764家餐饮企业。2014年（最新的数据），这一数字上升至27,204家。与此同时，烹饪学校的入学人数保持相对平稳。纽约海德公园（Hyde Park）美国烹饪学院（Culinary Institute of America），这个美国顶级烹饪学校，表示它的入学率在过去4年里每年的学生大概在1400名学生，毕业率为80%。芝加哥肯代尔大学（Kendall College）也有着相似的平稳入学率：2011年144名西餐西点专业毕业生；2014年121名；2015年130名。
10年前，芝加哥烹饪院校毕业生的就业地点非常局限：Alinea餐厅、Ambria餐厅、Le Francais餐厅、Tru餐厅、Charlie Trotter’s餐厅，这些餐厅都是专注于法式烹饪技巧或者那种人均价几百刀的定价套餐的餐厅。然而，在2015年这种类型的餐厅仍然存在，但是它们不是烹饪学校毕业生唯一的就业出路：受到异域美食影响的餐厅如澳门（Fat Rice餐厅）、韩国烤肉（Belly Q餐厅）、美食酒吧（Longman & Eagle餐厅）目前都获得了三星和四星评级。餐厅的价位再也不是声誉的指示器了。你可以去Xoco餐厅、Pleasant House Bakery餐厅或者Publican Quality Meats餐厅，花不到30美金就能品尝2道菜，而且这些餐厅里要求的厨房技能却和米其林星级餐厅里要求的一样严格。
越来越多的厨师更倾向于在非餐厅企业工作
总部位于纽约的一家网站Culinary Agents成立于2年前，就像酒店行业中的LinkedIn（全球最大的职业社交网站）和eHarmony（美国最大的婚恋交友网站之一）的结合体。这个网站将潜在的烹饪专业人士和雇主配对，与One Off Hospitality（餐厅管理公司）、Boka餐厅集团（Boka Restaurant Group）、The Alinea Group和全食（Whole Foods）（美国有机食品零售商）等一起提供就业机会。
这家网站的CEO Alice Cheng，附上了一张说明图表。图表显示了每个季度与网站合作的400多家芝加哥酒店企业以及这些企业所提供的职位空缺数字。就餐厅而言，这一数字在过去6个季度都保持平稳：2014年第一季度，一个芝加哥餐厅每个季度平均发布2.21个职位，2015年第二季度稍稍上涨，平均2.39个职位发布。
值得注意的是非餐厅酒店企业的线性图表，如专业零售商、市场、餐饮供应商、酒店。同期，每个企业的职位发布数量从每季度的1.25个增长到了3.12个——在大概18个月内增长了150%。换句话说，2014年第一季度，每家餐厅的平均职位发布，还不到1个，准确点说是0.57个。而如今，非餐厅企业的职位空缺和餐厅的职位发布比例是1.31。简单来说，如今的厨师有更为广阔的就业机会，并不仅仅局限于传统餐厅。
肯代尔大学毕业生的就业数字从反面反映出了毕业生们越来越青睐餐厅和零售企业。2011年3月，西餐西点专业毕业生，48%的毕业生在非酒店餐厅找到了工作，13%则在专业食品零售商和面包店找到了工作。而到2015年3月，肯代尔西餐西点专业毕业生在非酒店餐厅找到工作的比例是37%，而零售/面包店的数字则上升至20%。
当Eataly餐厅于2013年开业时，许多厨师选择了它；目前，82名流水线厨师和厨师学徒在它位于北岸的餐厅里工作，公司发言人Daltyn Little女士说道。
Mariano’s超市已经成为吸引当地厨师的另外一个好去处（正如一些餐厅厨师承认的那样，它是一个势头强劲的竞争者）。集团副总裁Jess Terry和Roundy’s超市首席人力资源官（Chief Human Resources Officer, CHRO）表示，公司的招聘策略包括在餐厅界寻找合格的申请者，35%的Mariano’s超市的餐饮服务经理拥有像肯代尔大学（Kendall College）或者沃什伯恩烹饪学院（Washburn Culinary Institute）等烹饪学校的学位。
Terry表示烹饪职位并不仅仅像过去的超市需求的那样，就像在熟食区准备意面沙拉或者为火热的吧台准备意大利千层面。每一家Mariano’s超市都有一个寿司展示柜，有几家还有牡蛎和贝类吧台，或者一个需要精通操作Southern Pride（烧烤专业人士喜爱的一款吸烟机）的专业人士的烧烤架。尽管Terry不会明确泄露每一个超市里被雇佣的厨师数量，大家可以看看连锁店的增长：Mariano’s超市于2010年在阿灵顿高地（Arlington Heights）进入了芝加哥市场。到2015年年底它将会在该地区拥有34家分店。
Sean Grady毕业于强生威尔士大学（Johnson & Wales University），获得烹饪学位，为Lettuce Entertain You餐厅集团工作了将近9年，当他在一家独立餐厅工作一小段时间后他跳槽到了Mariano’s超市。
Grady表示，在巴灵顿（Barrington）Pl8餐厅工作时，他每周6天从早上9点到晚上9点都在厨房里工作。对于一个刚升级为爸爸的人来讲时间安排太残忍了。所以两年前，Grady离开餐厅，在距离自己家阿灵顿高地2个街区远的Mariano’s超市找到了工作。刚开始时他在肉类专柜做兼职，之后升职为生产经理，目前在Mariano’s超市最新的Glenview West商店进行各种各样的烹饪项目。
“现在我能在下午6点到家，为我的家人做饭，带我的儿子去公园，” Grady说，“当我在工作和个人生活中找到平衡时，我变得很快乐。”
选择非餐厅的优势非常明显，至少从短期来看。薪资和福利都比独立餐厅要好很多，轮班是典型的8小时制，工作时间也更少涉及到晚班、周末班和节假日班。在餐厅里，厨师工作12个小时非常常见，因为餐厅就是在这段如此紧凑的时间里盈利，许多厨师的薪资都徘徊在最低薪资左右（7月1日，没有小费的员工的一小时的工资是10美金）。
Hickey在加入Rockit Ranch公司之前在四季酒店集团工作了将近20年，企业酒店链的流水线厨师比独立餐厅的厨师的薪资高出40%，这是很常见的事情，而且通常拥有更多的福利。然而，即使是酒店餐厅也存在招聘和留住厨师的难题。特朗普酒店（Trump Hotel）Sixteen餐厅行政总厨Thomas Lents表示，“办公桌上每天都有一摞等待新职位开放的简历的日子似乎一去不复返了。”
千禧年效应
数量越来越少是餐厅业主普通反映的问题，而他们也正在转变着态度。
“没有一个人想要倾听带有战争伤害的老人讲的事情，我非常理解。” Belly Q行政总厨Bill Kim讲到，“我来自雅皮士一代。我并不想说（如今的孩子）有权力这样做，但是我们不得不为之而奋斗。”
Kim的愤怒和他那一代的许多人一样——厨师都朝着能够进入Charlie Trotter’s餐厅、Jean Banchet餐厅、Tony Mantuano餐厅以及它们的家族餐厅的厨房里工作而努力着。这不仅仅是一种“这一代的孩子”的普遍感觉——餐厅业主能够点出过去几年的特定趋势。
第一点，他们看到的简历上都是在很短的时间内换了好几家公司。Hickey表示：“你会看到一份看起来非常专业的简历，上面列出的工作都是三个月、六个月的时间。很显然这会让人疑惑为什么他们不能在任何地方工作满一定的时间。这看起来并不像是他们被炒了鱿鱼，但是在短短4个月当中能学到什么呢？你们知道我们和多少工作仅仅4个月的人共事过吗？因此我们才不断地招聘和返聘。”
Joe Gancarz，一个在EL Ideas餐厅主厨Phillip Foss手下工作1年9个月的厨师，将自己较长的工作时间视为如今的一个例外。
“不久前某天我们刚好有一个厨师说他的朋友计划进行全球旅行，所以只工作6个月，” Gancarz表示，“他随后会开自己的餐厅。这绝对不是我会走的道路。我是一个保守的人。一年四季我们都会有向厨师学习的东西。”
Gancarz，29岁，表示和他同期毕业的学生只有不到一半还在实体餐厅工作。
Dave Beran说道，在他的厨房里，只有3位厨师在这家公司呆了18个月以上。另外6名厨师仅在Next餐厅工作不到3个月。
“我们最近招聘的两名员工，一个来自克利夫兰（Cleveland），2个月的邮件往来，他终于给自己找了一个安身立命的地方。” Beran表示，“工作了1个月，他不干了。他说‘我不是我想象中的那种厨师。’另外一个来自密尔沃基（Milwaukee）。他为我们工作了2周。一天下午1点钟，他离开了。”
Beran还说道：“我在Alinea餐厅的时候，我们有来自英国The Fat Duck的员工，以及纳帕谷（Napa Valley）The French Laundry餐厅的员工。而现在，我们却正在看着曾在Applebee’s餐厅和Jiffy Lube餐厅工作过的人的简历。”
Belly Q餐厅的Kim讲到：“我会要像来自墨西哥快餐店的某人而不会要那种在很好餐厅里工作过的人。坦白来讲，因为他们是那种能够留下来的人。那种简历上看着很漂亮，但是突然间太忙了，他们就走了。”
Tentori表示，最近的趋势是厨师们在试用的时候都不出现。在餐厅里，新厨师会过来进行一两天的试用（通常都是无薪的），这种叫做实习生。
“原本要过来实习的是5、6个人，” Tentori说，“到最后可能只有一个人出现？”
Paul Kahan表示：“五年前，我甚至记不起来有人不过来实习。”
“很多厨师都有这种千禧年效应，” Naha and Brindille餐厅的Carrie Nahabedian说，“他们有强烈的意愿，他们也有热情，但是他们并没有奉献精神。他们想要在自己可以接受的准则下工作。我也很喜欢人们追求生活的平衡，但是却不是你们刚刚出烹饪学校的时候。”
美食节目和流行文化的确美化了之前被视为蓝领工作者的一个职业。对我们工作的厨房美食网（Food Network）式的描绘，和我交流过每一位厨师，都说这种是浪漫化和有误导性的。
“很多人都听说从事烹饪职业是一件非常令人兴奋的事情，他们这样认为只是因为它听起来不错，”美国烹饪学院（Culinary Institute of America）Erickson表示，“我们每一期入学的学生都会讨论这件事情。我们并不想要那种因为看了电视节目才过来学习的学生。当然我们确信需要花很多年才能成为一名大厨。就像商学院的毕业生并不能立马成为一名CEO一样。你不可能刚从烹饪学校毕业就成为一名行政总厨。”
厨师正在着眼于大城市之外
不要仅仅只关注旧金山和纽约，传统美食城市中心很多时候都会更缺厨师。最大的罪魁祸首是谁呢？消费高的城市薪水低的职位，这样花费只会更贵而已。
“大家都在讨论这一点，而且已经持续好几年了，”《旧金山记事报》（San Francisco Chronicle）美食作家Jonathan Kauffman谈到了这个城市餐厅厨师的短缺。“由于旧金山的房租几乎翻倍，所以过去4年的情况实在是非常差。”（据北美购房网Zillow，旧金山公寓的中等租金是4000美金。）
根据国家房地产网Zumper7月份的报告，目前芝加哥一居室的中等价格是1880美金，是美国第六贵的城市。所以厨师都聚集到了生活成本更为低廉的城市。2015年美国最受欢迎的餐厅将包括纳什维尔（Nashville）和南卡罗来纳州查尔斯顿（Charleston, S.C.）Husk餐厅、奥斯丁（Austin）Qui餐厅、明尼阿波里斯（Minneapolis）Spoon and Stable餐厅和威斯康星州麦迪逊（Madison, Wis）L’Etoile餐厅。
2015年五个餐厅销售额增长最快的州？国家餐厅协会显示，高居榜首的是亚利桑那州（Arizona），其次是佛罗里达州（Florida）、北达科他州（North Dakota）、德克萨斯州（Texas）和科罗拉多州（Colorado）。
Cheng表示，餐厅职位急剧增长的城市包括费城（Philadelphia），她将其描述为“如雨后春笋般”，丹佛（Denver）和博尔德（Boulder）也是如此。
为了达到这一目标过去常常是去纽约，Balena’s Pandel表示，“现在为什么不去明尼阿波里斯（Minneapolis）或者奥斯丁（Austin）呢？你们可以挣到同样多的钱，而且在那里能得到更好的发展。”
同时，芝加哥的餐厅继续挂着“急聘员工”标志，未来更是如此。问问一家忙碌餐厅里的任何一名厨师，他或者她通常在电话里和同行以这样的方式开始聊天：“你今晚能匀两个人给我吗？”
国家餐厅协会预测，未来10年，餐厅厨师职位将会增长175,000份。
“来到芝加哥的厨师压根不用担心找不到工作的问题，” Nahabedian说，“他们基本上会立刻被聘用。”
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Where have all the cooks gone?
Within the tight network of Chicago restaurateurs exists a pervasive problem invisible to most diners. You hear it in anecdotal evidence shared among chefs, seemingly with increased frequency.
Here’s one: A few weeks back, One Off Hospitality chef Paul Kahan ran into fellow chef Chris Pandel in the Fulton Market district. Pandel — of The Bristol and Balena — was hosting an open call for cooking positions at Armour & Swift, his forthcoming steakhouse inside the new Google building. That day, Pandel collected 12 resumes, 10 from promising candidates. “It’s more than I thought,” he said. “Five years ago, I probably could have counted on 30 to 40.”
Kahan, who operates a number of restaurants in the West Loop, said to Pandel offhandedly: “You got a couple of extra cooks, send them my way?”
Pandel laughed: “Yeah, there’s no chance of that.”
Ask chefs and restaurateurs around the city, and they will lodge the same complaint: They desperately need cooks in their kitchens.
Dave Beran from Next said he has two vacant positions for cooks who could start today.
Giuseppe Tentori from GT Fish & Oyster said he could hire four cooks to start today.
Kevin Hickey, who oversees restaurants in the Rockit Ranch empire, including Bridgeport’s The Duck Inn, said he could hire 11 cooks to start today.
In its 2015 industry forecast report, the National Restaurant Association summarized it succinctly: “Growth in the number of hospitality job openings accelerated sharply in 2014, a development that was out of sync with the pace of hiring.”
Said Kahan: “It’s gotten to the point where if good cooks come along, we’ll hire them even if we don’t have a position. Because we will have a position.”
Not since honeybees, coral reefs and California rainfall has a disappearance proved so precipitous and mysterious. The repercussions for diners? At the best-run restaurants, even if they’re feeling the crunch, you likely won’t see it; kitchens are used to adapting during high-pressure service. At lesser restaurants, it’s harder to say whether staff shortages affect meal quality. Either way, there is perhaps no better time to pursue that fine-dining cooking career than this moment ... though the pay will stink and you’ll likely be worked to the bone.
There’s no one tidy answer to the question, “Where have all the cooks gone?” but rather a host of theories:
There are more restaurants, period.
The easiest point of entry is simply there are more restaurants today than ever — a 25 percent increase from a decade ago. In 2005, Illinois had 21,764 eating and drinking establishments, according to the National Restaurant Association. In 2014 (the most recent data available), that number was up to 27,204. Meanwhile, cooking school enrollment has held relatively steady. Mark Erickson, provost at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. — the country’s pre-eminent cooking school — says enrollment rate is roughly 1,400 students annually for the past four academic years, with an 80 percent graduation rate. Chicago’s Kendall College shows a similarly steady pace: 144 culinary arts graduates in 2011; 121 in 2014; 130 in 2015.
Ten years ago, the landing spots for culinary school graduates in Chicago were more limited: Alinea, Ambria, Le Francais, Tru, Charlie Trotter’s, which is to say places focusing on French cooking techniques or the type of restaurant with tasting menus that cost several hundred dollars a person. While many of those types of places still exist in 2015, they’re not the only places a culinary school graduate finds gravitas as a place of employment: Restaurants influenced by the food of Macau (Fat Rice), Korean barbecue (Belly Q), gastropubs (Longman & Eagle) are now earning three- and four-star reviews. Price points of restaurants are also no longer indicators of prestige. You can walk out of Xoco, Pleasant House Bakery or Publican Quality Meats and not pay more than $30 for two, but the kitchen skills required at those places are just as rigorous as the Michelin star-rated restaurants.
Cooks increasingly likely to work at nonrestaurant businesses.
Culinary Agents, a New York based-website founded two years ago, is like LinkedIn combined with eHarmony for the hospitality industry. The site matches up prospective culinary professionals with employers, and in Chicago, advertises job openings with One Off Hospitality, Boka Restaurant Group, The Alinea Group and Whole Foods, among others.
Alice Cheng, the site’s CEO, sent along a telling chart. It shows the 400-plus hospitality businesses the site partners with in Chicago and the number of job posts those companies advertise each quarter. For restaurants, that number has held steady over the last six quarters: In the first quarter of 2014, a Chicago restaurant averaged 2.21 job posts per quarter, rising slightly to 2.39 job posts per business per quarter during the second quarter of 2015.
What’s notable is the line charting nonrestaurant hospitality businesses, such as specialty retailers and markets, caterers and hotels. In that same period, the number of job postings per business increased from 1.25 per quarter to 3.12 — a 150 percent rise in roughly 18 months. Put another way, in the first quarter of 2014, for every job posting from a restaurant, there was less than one posting — 0.57 to be exact — from a nonrestaurant business. Today, that ratio is 1.31 nonrestaurant openings for every restaurant job posting. It simply says cooks today have a wider selection of job opportunities — opportunities that aren’t necessarily in traditional restaurants.
Employment numbers from Kendall College graduates show the restaurant and retail routes trending in opposite directions. Of the March 2011 culinary art graduates, 48 percent found employment in nonhotel restaurants, with 13 percent in specialty food retailers and bakeries. By March 2015, 37 percent of Kendall’s culinary arts graduates found work at a nonhotel restaurant, while retail/bakery jumped to 20 percent.
Many cooks opted for Eataly when it opened in November 2013; right now, 82 line and prep cooks are employed at its River North location, said company spokeswoman Daltyn Little.
Mariano’s has become another intriguing option for local cooks (and as some restaurant chefs admit, an increasing competitor and a source of consternation). Jess Terry, group vice president and chief human resources officer for Roundy’s supermarkets, said the company’s hiring strategy includes seeking candidates in the restaurant world and that 35 percent of Mariano’s food service managers have a degree from a cooking school such as Kendall College or Washburn Culinary Institute.
Terry notes that cooking positions aren’t just for the supermarket foods of yore, like preparing pasta salad in the deli case or making lasagna for the hot bar. Every Mariano’s contains a sushi counter, and a number of locations have an oyster and shellfish bar, or a barbecue stand that requires a pitmaster who can proficiently operate a Southern Pride — a finicky smoker favored by barbecue professionals. Though Terry won’t reveal specifically the number of cooks employed at each supermarket, consider the chain’s growth: Mariano’s entered the Chicagoland market in 2010 in Arlington Heights. By the end of 2015 it will have 34 locations in the area.
Sean Grady, who graduated with a culinary degree from Johnson & Wales University and worked for Lettuce Entertain You group for nearly nine years, made the leap to Mariano’s after a short stint working at an independent restaurant.
At Pl8 in Barrington, Grady said he’d spend 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. in a kitchen six days a week. It was a brutal schedule for a father of a newborn son. So two years ago, Grady left the restaurant and found employment at a Mariano’s two blocks from his home in Arlington Heights. He began part time behind the meat counter, moved up to produce manager, and now works on various culinary projects at its newest Glenview West store.
“I can get home by 6 p.m., cook dinner for my family, take my son to the park now,” Grady said. “When I can find balance in my work and personal life, I’m a happy guy.”
The advantages of these nonrestaurant options are clear, at least in the short term. Benefits and pay packages are better than at stand-alone restaurants, shifts are typically eight hours and operating hours are less likely to involve nights, weekends and holidays. At restaurants, it’s not unusual for cooks to work 12-hour shifts, and because restaurants operate on such tight profit margins, many cooks’ salaries hover around minimum wage (as of July 1, $10 an hour in Chicago for nontipped employees such as cooks).
Hickey, who spent nearly 20 years with the Four Seasons group before joining Rockit Ranch, said it’s not unusual for line cooks at corporate hotel chains to be paid 40 percent more than cooks at independent restaurants, and almost always with more robust benefits. Still, even hotel restaurants are having trouble recruiting and retaining cooks. Said Thomas Lents, executive chef of Sixteen at the Trump Hotel: “The days of a stack of resumes on your desk waiting for the next position to open don’t seem to exist anymore, anywhere.”
The millennial effect
Less quantifiable is what restaurateurs claim are shifting attitudes among 20-something cooks.
“No one wants to hear the old man with the battle scars, I understand that,” said Bill Kim, executive chef of Belly Q. “But I’m from the yuppie generation. I don’t want to say (kids today) are entitled, but we had to work for it.”
Kim’s exasperation rings true for many of his generation — that is, chefs who worked their way up in the kitchens of Charlie Trotter’s, Jean Banchet, Tony Mantuano and their ilk. It’s not just a general feeling of “kids these days!” — restaurateurs can point to specific trends in the past few years.
For one, they’ve seen resumes with multiple employers over a short time span. Said Hickey: “You’ll see a very professional looking resume, and the list of jobs will be three-month, six-month stints. They’re completely oblivious to the concern why they haven’t put in a reasonable amount of time anywhere. It’s not like they got fired, but what are you learning in four months? You know how much it is for me to spend time with guys who work for only four months? So we end up constantly hiring and constantly rehiring.”
Joe Gancarz, a cook who’s spent 21/2 years working under chef Phillip Foss at EL Ideas, considers his relatively long tenure the exception to today’s rule.
“We just had a cook the other day who said his friend’s plan was to travel the world for five years, working six-month stints,” Gancarz said. “Then he’d open his own restaurant after. That’s definitely not the path I would take. I’m more of an old soul. There’s four seasons you can learn from a chef.”
Gancarz, 29, said less than half of the members of his culinary school graduating class are still working in brick-and-mortar restaurants.
Dave Beran said, in his kitchen, there are three cooks who’ve been with the company longer than 18 months. The other six cooks have worked at Next for under three months.
“Of our two last hires, one moved from Cleveland, and it was a two-month process of emailing back and forth, finding him a place to live,” Beran said. “One month into working, he walked out. He said, ‘I’m not the cook I thought I was.’ The other guy moved here from Milwaukee. He worked for us for two weeks. Then at 1 p.m. one afternoon, he left.”
Beran adds: “Back when I was at Alinea, we had guys coming in from The Fat Duck (in Britain) and The French Laundry (Napa Valley). Now, we’re looking at resumes with previous jobs at Applebee’s and Jiffy Lube.”
Belly Q’s Kim: “I’ll take someone from Chipotle over someone from a great restaurant. Honestly. They’re the ones who will stay. The impressive-looking ones on the resume, all of a sudden it’s too busy, and they go.”
Tentori says a troubling recent trend is that cooks don’t show up for their tryouts. In restaurants, new cooks typically come in for a one- or two-day tryout (usually unpaid) called a stagiaire.
“For every five or six people who are scheduled to stage,” Tentori said, “maybe one will show up?”
Said Paul Kahan: “Five years ago, I can’t ever remember a stage not showing up.”
“A lot of cooks have that millennial effect,” said Carrie Nahabedian of Naha and Brindille. “They have the strong desire, they have the passion, but they don’t necessarily have the dedication. They want to work but under their terms. I like balance in people’s lives, but not when you’re just out of culinary school.”
Food television and pop culture undoubtedly have glamorized a profession that was historically regarded as blue collar. The Food Network portrayal of working kitchens, every chef I talked to notes, is romanticized and misleading.
“A lot of people hear excitement of culinary profession, and they pursue it because it sounds good,” said Erickson of the Culinary Institute of America. “We have that discussion at orientation of every incoming class. We don’t necessarily want students to come in because they saw it on TV. Certainly we believe it takes years to become a chef. Someone who graduates from business school doesn’t become a CEO immediately. You can’t just graduate from culinary school and become an executive chef.”
Cooks are looking beyond big cities.
Look no farther than San Francisco and New York, traditional city centers of high gastronomy, where the shortage of cooks is many times more apparent. The biggest culprit? A historically low-paying position in a historically expensive city, and it’s only getting costlier.
“Everybody is talking about it and has been for a few years,” San Francisco Chronicle food writer Jonathan Kauffman said of the shortage of restaurant cooks in his city. “It’s been particularly bad the last four years because rent in San Francisco has nearly doubled.” (According to Zillow, the median rent of a San Francisco apartment is $4,000.)
The median one-bedroom rent in Chicago is now $1,880, the sixth highest in the country, according to a July report from national real estate site Zumper. So chefs are flocking to cities where the cost of living is far cheaper. A list of the country’s most lauded restaurants in 2015 will include Husk in Nashville and Charleston, S.C., Qui in Austin, Spoon and Stable in Minneapolis and L’Etoile in Madison, Wis.
The five states with the largest restaurant sales growth in 2015? The National Restaurant Association has Arizona topping the list, followed by Florida, North Dakota, Texas and Colorado.
Cheng said cities experiencing a boom in restaurant job openings include Philadelphia, which she describes as “growing like gangbusters,” as well as Denver/Boulder.
The goal used to be to go to New York, said Balena’s Pandel. “Now why not go to Minneapolis or Austin? You can make the same wage, and it goes a bit further there.”
In the meantime, Chicago restaurants continue to hang “Help Wanted” signs and will do so for the foreseeable future. Ask any chef of a busy restaurant, and he or she will tell you a frequent phone conversation to a fellow chef will begin like this: “Can you spare anyone tonight?”
The National Restaurant Association projects that, in the next decade, the number of restaurant cook positions will grow by 175,000 jobs.
“A cook moving to Chicago won’t have to worry about getting a job,” Nahabedian said. “They’ll get hired almost immediately.”
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