What makes a Chef?

I have met many “chefs” in my time working up and down the country over the years and the one thing I always found difficult to comprehend was the inconsistency in food across different chefs.

I could take 1 dish and give it to 5 different chefs and I would get 5 different things. This is the personal element of cooking, the creative side, the good chef with a passion and genuine love for the trade would give me something exciting, maybe a bit different to the brief. It would have depth, flavour, story, and everything on the plate would have meaning. Whereas sometimes I would get “exactly what it says on the tin” with no love or passion. You can see it and certainly taste it.

“A Chef to me isn’t experience, it isn’t knowledge, it isn’t how fast or how organised you are, its passion, its creativity, its effort. The rest will come easily.”

I am not one for chef quotes and clichés but this one really does sum up everything about the mindset of a chef.

“You can’t teach anyone how to cook, all you can do is show them, it’s up to them whether they want to teach themselves. As ive always said in my life, cooking is not a recipe it’s a philosophy, unless its pastry then its a chemistry.

People who cook well are the ones who teach themselves because they question everything.

A recipe is a guideline and that’s all it is.”

Marco Pierre White