Earning an accolade as prestigious as a Michelin Star is a lifelong aspiration for culinary professionals. The journey of a Michelin Star chef is without shortcuts, but passion and determination will carry you through towards success.
The Michelin system began awarding fine dining restaurants with its coveted stars in 1926, and released its three-star rating system in 1931. Today, less than 16,000 restaurants worldwide can say they’ve achieved Michelin Star status, after being reviewed by anonymous inspectors.
The criteria evaluated by Michelin inspectors is five-fold: they assess the quality of products; the mastery of flavour and cooking techniques; the personality of the chef represented in the dining experience; the harmony of flavours; and the consistency between inspectors’ visits.
While Michelin Stars are awarded to the restaurants and not the chefs, the executive chef plays a major role in a restaurant's success, and will deservedly take some credit for the accomplishment.
According to Escoffier, although there is no clear path towards Michelin Star success, the journey to this acclaim can be distilled into six stages. If you wish to follow the footsteps of those who have earned this award, this is the road to glory.
Start With a Culinary Education
Culinary school experience is not a definitive requirement to become a chef, but this is the most straightforward way to attain the foundational skills that will propel you towards success, and get you employed as a chef.
Whether you opt for an online program or in-person classes, you will be able to dedicate time to mastering fundamentals like knife skills and food safety. There will also be opportunities to apply what you’ve learned in externships, giving you professional experience to start your career.
At Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts, you will also form a closer connection to your ingredients, and learn how to design menus and manage purchasing. The Chef Instructors are there to guide you with their wealth of knowledge, and can act as a sounding board for your new ideas and concepts.
Practice in a Kitchen
After you have obtained a culinary education, it’s time to endure the heat of a working professional kitchen. At Escoffier, they assist students in acquiring six-week hands-on industry externships towards the end of their degree, and create attractive candidates for chef positions thereafter. In a high-speed kitchen environment, you will learn creativity, resourcefulness, discipline, communication and how to work faster and under pressure. But, without a culinary education, you may find it difficult to be hired in a professional kitchen.
Kitchen work will test you, likely demanding over 50 hours a week, including nights, weekends and holidays. Your determination to follow through will be key here, as you will be pushed to your limit working up to 7 days a week for up to 14 hours each shift.
For executive chefs, the role requires hours of paperwork, budget planning, inventory and scheduling, and could take up to 120 hours a week. This is not meant to scare off aspiring chefs, but it is certainly a reality check for those with high culinary ambitions.
Find a Mentor and Learn From Them
No matter where you are along your culinary journey, every chef can benefit from having a mentor who can inspire and guide you. At culinary school and in a working kitchen environment, you may naturally develop this kind of valuable relationship with your Chef Instructor, Executive Chef, Sous Chef, Head Chef, or alumni.
If you don’t have a dedicated mentor, work up the courage to ask a professional you admire. Asking for mentorship should both be a compliment to them, and signal that you’re serious about advancing your career. Even if they don’t take you on, they may be able to refer others in their network to mentor you.
Once you find a mentor, they will put you to work, help you establish concrete goals, and hold you accountable if your effort isn’t up to the level it should be. As a career-oriented chef, you will stand out amongst the kitchen crew, who for some, working in a kitchen is just a job.
Develop Your Soft Skills
In addition to mastering hard skills, such as how to cook professionally, manage yourself, and ensure the kitchen is safe and clean, you will also need to develop your soft skills if you hope to one day lead a kitchen.
Soft skills are all about building your character to become worthy of a senior position, and includes your physical, mental and emotional stamina, communication, organisation, attention to detail and creativity.
Altogether, these skills will not only help you create delicious plates, but also make you a leader your team can turn to. As a successful leader, you will get the most out of your team, whom you in turn will also count on to deliver your culinary ideas.
Gain Experience at Top Restaurants
As you gain real world kitchen experience, it should be your goal to keep challenging yourself with every position you take. Before you guide a restaurant to Michelin Star status, you should gain working experience in how these top kitchens operate. Those talented enough to secure a spot in an award-winning restaurant will be pushed even further to refine their skills and develop a culinary identity.
Being able to say you’ve worked at one of these restaurants will also be a credit to how far you’ve come along your culinary journey, and give you more credibility when trying to achieve your dreams of running a kitchen to Michelin Star success.
Work Your Way Up the Kitchen
At this stage, you have all the tools necessary to achieve your goals. But, it’s certainly not time to stop working. If you aim to be an executive chef, you need to become a commanding and creative leader, as well as a talented cook. So, you should always be on the lookout for opportunities to learn from others, push the boundaries, and step into leadership roles.
Once you become an executive chef in a city that’s visited by Michelin Guide inspectors, keep working, and allow your solid foundation, perseverance and passion to drive you towards delivering exceptional service, and finally earn that Michelin Star.