38°
After all, I never attended one of the prestigious culinary schools (other than to have lunch). Nor did I spend years being mentored by some notoriously mean accomplished “Great Chefs."
Because of this, I never felt like I truly earned the title. Of course most people refer to me as "Chef Peter Kelly" but this is the result of working at my trade and cooking for so many years.
In most professional kitchens the person in charge is referred to as “Chef” and you will hear a lot of “Yes Chef” or “Oui Chef" in the course of an evening from the line cooks, waiters, porters and management. But not in my kitchens because everyone just calls me “Peter."
That's who I am first; I am a cook second. This doesn't mean that I don’t take what I do seriously, it just it means that I leave titles and reverence to the people that have paid for their culinary education whether at the knee of an exalted culinary superstar or at the university level. They earned the title. Me -- I just opened a restaurant one day and started cooking.
Many professional kitchens are run with military precision and the “chefs” at the helm demand the respect of their underlings the way a general in battle might expect his platoon to behave.
My experience has been if you get in the trenches with your team and work side by side together as co-workers and are all contributing members in the effort, you create a much more dynamic team approach with the end result happier guests.
This column is a continuing series by Chef Peter X. Kelly of Xaviars Restaurant Group which runs every Thursday.
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