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Summary: The difference between a cook and a chef is that a cook is in training while a chef is a highly-trained leader in the kitchen. Understand what makes a chef with tips from an experienced chef in this free video on culinary careers.
Chef Jeff Hadley began his career in food service at the age of 16 when he worked as a busboy and dishwasher at a restaurant in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Penn. He was bitten by the...read more
"A cook is an untrained chef. Chef is a well trained cook. A cook is somebody that has come in off the street that might, if you're lucky, they might have some skills that can put food together for you. I always looked for dishwashers, again they understand how my kitchen works and that's where I always believed in promoting from within and I saw a guy that was giving me a little look like hey I wouldn't mind doing that, I'd bring him on the line and let him see a little bit. And they're cooks, they don't have the skills. Chefs are the kings of the kitchen, they're the ones that do the direction. In a classical kitchen the chef is the head of the kitchen. Most of the time they didn't even cook, especially in larger kitchens. Nowadays that's changed a little bit but even in big resort hotels or resort properties in general, the chef doesn't cook. He's there doing administering and pushing all that down to his assistants or the soux chefs to make sure that the cooks are doing it. So there's a pecking order there and chefs are cooks but cooks are not chefs."
eHow Article: What is the Difference Between a Cook & a Chef?