The Factors of How to Become a Personal Chef

You might have encountered a survey asking teenagers of what they want to hire in case they have excess money to spend on luxuries. Many answered- a personal chef.

This survey only recognizes the want of people to have people pampering them with palatable foods and delectable menus. And who would not want some leisure, right?

A personal chef is someone who prepares and cooks food specifically for a person who has hired him. It may either be for some special occasions only but other people, who have the many enough, may even hire professional chefs, for the leisure of fine dining right at their houses.

Personal chefs could be compared to old maids who have learned to perfect numerous menus to serve their house. The difference however is that professional chefs have formal education and have attended formal classes and therefore, practical applications of whatever programs they have chose dot attend. Also, personal chefs are hired and are paid according to the degree of mastery they have. But that is difficult to measure really that’s why it is best that they are paid according to the dictates of the present career value and several other factors.

Personal chefs are undoubtedly the personal choices of the clients who hired them. They have the pleasure of preparing and making menus that would suit the tastes of the people they cook for. This is why it is vital that both the chef and the client have some degree of connection when it comes to taste and food choices.

Often, people interchange the jobs of personal chefs and caterers. There are main differences and we would site portions of them here.

For one, caterers are most likely businesspeople who are hired to create beverages, food and service functions on events ranging from intimate family dinner to weddings, parties and conferences. Personal chefs, on the other hand, are paid to cook meals for individual families and in-home food services for dinner parties.

Apart from what we have mentioned here, there are other several factors that determine an excellent personal chef from that of a not-so-good one.

Personal taste
We have earlier mentioned that to be able to satisfy the needs of the client’s taste buds, the personal chef and the client must have some degree of connection in terms of food choices. This might be quite hard to find and it is practically the reason why there are too many occasions where clients change their personal chefs.

Diversity of knowledge
Maybe you like a particular cuisine or maybe you like a particular way of preparing and presenting food. But fixation on a specific cuisine may not be too healthy for both the client and the personal chefs. The knowledge on food diversity is crucial since this would likely give better options for both parties. Therefore, the personal chef must be able to practice and perform several types of cuisines that would satisfy the need for multiplicity of meal choices.

Attitude
Apart from taste for fine foods, creativity and hygiene, you also need people skills. Whether you like the idea or not, you have to sell yourself to people. To make people recognize your potentiality of giving services to them and your credibility on satisfying their need for well-prepared food. This is why it is important that you practice good attitude towards your client and your assistants.

4 Components of How to Become a Personal Chef

In learning how to become a personal chef, you have to realize that people require much more than the certificate ion order to hire you to cook for them personally. There are certain skills and attributes expected of you. Some of these skills can be acquired in the normal course of study at a culinary school, while others can be acquired through experience. Here are some of the skills that people expect you to acquire when you learn how to become a personal chef:

1) Hygiene Would you hire someone to cook your food if it you are not sure of their cleanliness? In learning how to become a personal chef, people expect you to have great hygiene. If you are applying for a position as a personal chef, you should not treat it as an application for just another job. You have to make sure that your appearance is not just presentable, but neat. You should expect people to observe your every move, looking for signs that you have poor hygiene and you should definitely make sure that they will not find any.

2) Taste Basically, a personal chef will share his or her taste of food with whoever employs him or her. In learning how to become a personal chef, people expect you to have acquired a taste for fine food. That is, future employers expect you to give them food which they will like.

Oh sure, some people think that eating escargot is the peak of fine dining, but would your employers really want you to prepare snails? In learning how to become a personal chef, you need to learn how to let go of your personal taste and how to expand it to include the preferences of other people. If you own a restaurant, then you can scoff at the person who wishes to have more salt. But if you work as a personal chef, then you have to realize that your livelihood depends on that person and you must make accommodations.

3) People skills Some people think that in order to become a personal chef, you need only to know how to cook well. However, you also need to learn how to interact with the people around you. In learning how to become a personal chef, you need to realize that you will not be working alone.

Personal chefs depend on their assistants to make sure that they create delicious dishes. Personal chefs need to be able to manage the kitchen staff with efficiency in order to make sure that people get their meals on time.

You need people skills most of all because you need to interact with your employer. You need to be able to tell what a person wants to eat. You need to excite them with the next dish you prepare. Not many people know that a huge part of taste is psychological. No matter how good you say your cooking is, if people don’t want it, then it is useless. Learning how to become a personal chef does not require you to develop telepathic powers, but you need to know what other people are thinking just the same.

4) Showmanship In learning how to become a personal chef, you should have acquired at least a bit of showmanship. Learning how to become a personal chef will show you that some dishes need a little bit of flourish in order for people to enjoy them.