Questions to Ask a Chef
Questions to ask a chef when you get the chance: a class or career-day interview, a piece you are writing, a chef's table, a cooking class, or an online ask-me-anything. The 70 questions run from easy openers through how they came up in the trade, how a menu gets written and priced, what goes on in the kitchen during service and cooking advice you can use at home, and they finish with the fun questions to ask a chef: the strangest order, the kitchen playlist, what gets eaten at midnight. A student sent to interview a chef about his job, or hers, will find most of it in the career group. All of them are for a conversation with a working chef, not for hiring one.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Openers
What made you want to cook for a living?
Why ask it
Every chef has been asked this, so the first answer may be the polished one. The plainer version is often a washing-up job at sixteen, a relative with a restaurant, or needing work that started that week. Ask what kept them in it once the novelty wore off.
What was the first thing you learned to cook properly?
Why ask it
'Properly' is the word doing the work. Most cooks could make something before anyone taught them to make it well, and the dish they name, an omelette, a roast chicken, a pot of stock, usually comes with whoever was standing next to them. Ask who that was.
What does a normal working day look like, from walking in to locking up?
Why ask it
Ask for clock times and you get the real shape of the job: deliveries checked in, hours of prep, a staff meal eaten standing, then service as the short loud part at the end. If you are writing this up for a class, this is the answer you will quote most.
What do you most like to cook when the choice is entirely yours?
Why ask it
Asking it this way lets them leave the restaurant's menu out of the answer. Notice whether they name a dish or a way of cooking: braising, grilling over fire, anything with dough. A method shows how they think as a cook, and a dish usually has a person or a place behind it worth asking about.
Did you go to culinary school, and would you tell someone to go now?
Why ask it
Chefs disagree sharply on this, so you get an opinion instead of a biography. Some credit school with their fundamentals, others say they learned it all on the job while being paid. Courses and costs differ a lot by country, so if you are weighing it up yourself, ask what theirs cost and what it let them do on day one that the others could not.
Which ingredient do you most enjoy working with at the moment?
Why ask it
An all-time favourite gets you salt, butter or lemon. Asking about now gets whatever has just come into season or just arrived from a new supplier, and usually a short speech about it. Follow with what they are doing with it and whether it has reached the menu yet.
What is the best part of the job, and which part would you hand to someone else tomorrow?
Why ask it
Pairing the two stops the answer turning into a recruitment speech. The best part is often small and physical: a quiet kitchen first thing in the morning, or a packed night where every plate goes out right. The part they would give away is quite often paperwork, meaning ordering, staff schedules and invoices.
What should I order tonight?
Why ask it
Only for when you are sitting in their restaurant, where it is the easiest opening there is. You may be pointed at the dish the kitchen is proudest of that week and not the bestseller. If the answer comes with a reason, a supplier, a short season, a technique they have been working on, that is the thread to follow.
Career
What was your first job in a kitchen, and what did they actually have you doing?
Why ask it
Pot wash, peeling, picking herbs for eight hours: the first job is often not cooking at all, and chefs tend to tell this one with affection. It also gives anyone thinking about the trade an honest picture of month one.
Who taught you the most, and were they good to work for?
Why ask it
The two parts can have different answers, and asking both gives them permission to say so. Someone who learned most from a boss they would never work for again can tell you a good deal about how kitchens were run when they came up. Do not press for a name they are careful not to give.
Which technique took you the longest to get right?
Why ask it
Usually something unglamorous: laminated pastry, a sauce that will not split, taking a fish off the bone without waste. The number of attempts it took, if they will guess at one, is the real lesson in how a kitchen skill gets learned.
What are the steps between a first kitchen job and running the kitchen, and where do people get stuck?
Why ask it
Titles and ladders differ from one country and one kitchen to the next, so ask how it worked where they came up. Where people get stuck is the part to write down: plenty of strong cooks stall at the point where the job turns into ordering, rotas and managing people.
What separates a good cook from a good chef?
Why ask it
The answer often leaves the food out entirely. You hear about organisation, staying level when the orders stack up, teaching, and knowing the numbers. For a student, this is the question that shows what to work on besides knife skills.
How many hours do you work in a week, and what has that cost you outside the kitchen?
Why ask it
Get the number first, then leave room for the rest. Missed weddings, birthdays and school evenings come up often, and so do the things people did to claw time back. If the answer turns short, move on, because this is a sore subject for a lot of people in the trade.
What does the job do to your body after years on your feet?
Why ask it
Backs, knees, burns and broken sleep all come up, usually with a laugh. Asked out of curiosity and not pity, it can also explain why some chefs move off the stove into teaching, development work or management. If they wave it away, let it go.
What do you look for when you hire someone with no experience?
Why ask it
Listen for how little of the answer is about cooking. Turning up on time, keeping a tidy station and taking correction without sulking come up far more than talent. If you want a kitchen job yourself, ask what would make them say no in the first week.
What would you tell someone starting their first kitchen job that nobody told you?
Why ask it
The advice tends to be blunt and usable: turn up early, buy your own knives, learn to clean fast, pick a kitchen for who runs it and not for its reviews. What they wish they had been told is usually more specific than anything they would say in a speech.
Knowing what you know now, would you choose this trade again?
Why ask it
Save it until you have some rapport, because a stranger gets a quick yes. The useful answers come with a condition attached: yes, but in a different kind of kitchen, or yes, but not on the line past a certain age.
What do you still want to do in this trade that you have not done yet?
Why ask it
It asks about ambition without the job-interview phrasing of 'where do you see yourself'. Answers range from a place of their own to a book, a different cuisine, or simply two days off in a row. An owner may tell you instead why they never want a second restaurant.
Which dish are you proudest of, and which one actually pays the bills?
Why ask it
Splitting pride from profit lets them be honest about the menu. The one that pays often gets a shrug: a burger, a steak, a pasta that funds the plates they care about. Ask whether the two have ever been the same dish.
Where do your ideas for new dishes come from?
Why ask it
Inspiration is the stock question, so steer it toward a recent example: ask about the newest dish on the menu and what set it off. The sources are often small: a delivery too good to ignore, a meal eaten on a day off, a mistake that tasted better than the plan.
How do you decide a dish is finished and can go on the menu?
Why ask it
Every kitchen has a test, even if nobody has written it down. Some cook a dish thirty times first, some put it on and adjust it nightly, and some hand it to the newest cook to see whether it survives being made by someone else. Ask which dish failed that test most recently.
How often does the menu change, and what forces the change?
Why ask it
The honest drivers are usually practical: a supplier's price jumped, a season ended, the cooks got bored, or a dish stopped selling. A menu that never moves is not a bad sign in itself, since some rooms live on six dishes people travel for.
How do you work out what to charge for a dish?
Why ask it
The guess from the table is ingredients plus a bit. The real sum brings in wages, rent, waste, and the plates sold at a thin margin so the rest of the menu looks fair. The dish that costs the most to make is not always the one with the highest price, which is worth a follow-up.
Which dish on the menu do people order least, and why do you keep it on?
Why ask it
A dish that does not sell and has not been cut is there for a reason other than money: one regular who would notice, a gap it fills for vegetarians, or plain stubbornness. Whichever it is, consider ordering it.
What have you taken off the menu that you regret?
Why ask it
Dishes mostly come off for dull reasons: an ingredient doubled in price, it tied up one cook for the whole night, or four people a week ordered it. Which reason it was shows the limits this kitchen works inside. If you miss a dish as a customer, this is the moment to say so.
Is there a dish you have never got right?
Why ask it
Give them a moment, because the true answer takes some pride to say out loud. It is often a classic with nowhere to hide: a plain omelette, a loaf of bread, a pot of rice. The detail of what still goes wrong shows how high their standard for it is.
What is the most overrated ingredient right now?
Why ask it
The trends question in a form people enjoy answering. Listen for whether the objection is to the ingredient itself or to how it gets used, shaved over everything or added to justify a price. If they name something on their own menu, ask why it is still there.
Which cheap ingredient deserves far more respect than it gets?
Why ask it
The natural partner to the overrated question, and the answers are things you can buy tomorrow: cabbage, onions, tinned fish, dried beans, chicken thighs. Ask what they do with it, because the method is usually simpler than you expect.
Where does your fish or your veg actually come from, and how long is that chain?
Why ask it
Asking for the chain gets you a picture: a market at four in the morning, one wholesaler for everything, a day boat that decides the specials. Plenty of good restaurants buy from the same wholesaler as their neighbours, so do not treat that answer as a confession.
What happens to the trimmings?
Why ask it
A small, concrete way in to food waste. Bones go into stock, trim into the staff meal, herb stalks into an oil, or they admit that a fair amount goes in the bin. Asked as 'what is your sustainability policy', the same subject gets a prepared statement.
In the kitchen
What is the hardest part of a service that a diner never notices?
Why ask it
From the dining room a busy night looks like cooking. From the stove it is more often timing: four tables that ordered within a minute of each other, a section working one person short, a whole room that wants to eat at eight.
How does a table of six get all its plates at the same moment?
Why ask it
Diners rarely think about it until one plate arrives late. The explanation runs through who calls the order, which dish is started first because it takes longest, and where finished plates wait. It is easiest to follow if they walk you through one real ticket, so ask for that.
Which station in your kitchen is the hardest to work, and who do you put on it?
Why ask it
Grill, sauce, pastry, the pass: which one they name depends on the menu, and the reason shows where a night is most likely to come apart. Who they trust with it is a compliment that cook may never have heard out loud.
How do you stay level when a service starts to go wrong?
Why ask it
Pressure is what everyone wants to ask about, and a general question gets a general answer. Ask about one particular night instead. The detail to listen for is what they do in the first minute: slow the tickets, pull a dish, step onto a section themselves, or simply go quiet.
What happens in the kitchen when a plate comes back?
Why ask it
The steps are what you want: whether someone tastes it, who gets told, whether it is written down, and whether the cook hears about it in front of everyone or afterwards. How one returned plate is handled says a lot about how mistakes in general are handled there.
Do you remember the worst thing you have ever sent out?
Why ask it
Keep the tone light and it usually comes back as a story with a punchline. What they choose shows what counts as a real failure for them: something undercooked, something sent to the wrong table, or something that simply looked careless. If the story turns serious, drop the smile and let them finish it.
How do you cook the same dish four hundred times and still care about the four hundredth?
Why ask it
Some talk about pride in repetition, and others admit that by then caring is a discipline and not a feeling. Ask what they still check on a plate they have made a thousand times. That short list is how consistency gets kept.
What should a diner with an allergy tell the kitchen, and when?
Why ask it
You are asking how their kitchen handles it, and that varies a great deal from one restaurant to the next. Many chefs would far sooner hear at booking than at the table, and will say plainly what they can and cannot promise in a shared kitchen. Take the answer as how this one place works, not as a rule for every restaurant.
What do customers do, without meaning to, that makes the kitchen's night harder?
Why ask it
Asked with a smile, this brings out stories: the whole party turning up forty minutes late, eight separate changes to one dish, the big table that orders at last call. It is quietly useful too, since most of it is easy to stop doing.
Do you read your reviews, and has one ever changed what you cook?
Why ask it
A staple with an edge, so ask it plainly and do not quote a bad one at them. Some chefs read everything, some have a partner who filters, some stopped years ago. Whether one ever changed a dish separates the review that stung from the review that was right.
Who is the most memorable person you have cooked for?
Why ask it
Wider than 'have you cooked for anyone famous', on purpose. You may get a celebrity, and you are as likely to get a parent eating in the restaurant for the first time or a regular on a big night. If they keep the name vague, leave it there, because discretion is part of the job.
What do people get wrong about kitchens if they have only seen them on television?
Why ask it
What gets edited out of a cooking show is most of the job: the hours of prep before doors, the ordering, the cleaning down, the paperwork. Let them pick the correction. Whichever myth annoys them most is the answer worth quoting.
Has the way kitchens are run changed since you started?
Why ask it
Best asked of someone with ten years or more behind them. Hours, tempers, pay and who gets hired are the usual subjects, and the verdict is often mixed: glad about some of it, unconvinced by the rest. Ask what they do differently from the chef who trained them.
Home cooking
What do home cooks get wrong most often?
Why ask it
The usual suspects are a crowded pan, a pan that is not hot enough, meat cut the moment it leaves the heat, and too little salt. Whichever they name, ask what the fix looks like on a home stove, since the diagnosis alone changes nothing.
How do you know when something is seasoned properly?
Why ask it
Seasoning is hard to learn from a recipe, so it helps to hear a cook describe it. Many talk about tasting at several points and reaching for lemon or vinegar as well as salt. Ask them to describe underseasoned food, because 'flat' is easier to recognise than 'enough'.
Which knife or piece of equipment is worth real money, and what is a waste of it?
Why ask it
The worth-it list tends to be short: one decent chef's knife, something to keep it sharp, a heavy pan. The waste-of-money list is more fun, and single-purpose gadgets usually lead it. If they name a brand, ask what they would buy on half the budget.
What do you always keep in the cupboard at home?
Why ask it
Storecupboard answers are small and easy to copy: a particular vinegar, anchovies, decent stock, a jar of something fermented. Each one usually rescues something, often a meal made of leftovers at the end of a long week, and that use is worth more than the shopping list.
What should someone who cannot cook learn to make first?
Why ask it
The dish is usually chosen for what it teaches: eggs for controlling heat, a pot of rice for leaving things alone, a simple soup for seasoning. Ask why that one, because the reason carries over to everything you cook afterwards.
What is one restaurant habit that would improve anyone's cooking at home?
Why ask it
Narrowed like this, the request for a tip gets an answer you can use tonight. Common ones are having everything chopped and laid out before the heat goes on, wiping down as you work, and labelling what goes into the fridge. None of them costs anything.
How do you tell when meat or fish is done without cutting into it?
Why ask it
Some go by touch, some by time and a rest, and plenty will tell you without embarrassment to buy a probe thermometer, which is the answer to trust for chicken. Fish is the harder case, since it goes from done to dry faster than a steak does, so steer them there if you have time.
Which cookbook have you actually cooked from until it fell apart?
Why ask it
Asking for the battered one filters out the coffee-table books. The answer is often older and plainer than you would guess, and it comes with which pages are stained. Write the title down exactly, because a recommendation does not get more direct than that.
If I only got better at one thing this year, what should it be?
Why ask it
Tell them what you cook in a normal week before you ask, so the answer is about you and not about home cooks in general. The best answers come with a way to practise: one knife cut on a bag of onions, the same sauce every Sunday for a month.
Fun and off duty
What do you eat when you get home at midnight?
Why ask it
Toast, instant noodles, cereal, whatever is cold in the fridge: the answer is rarely a recipe. It is a friendly way to hear what the hours do to a cook's own eating, and in front of an audience it nearly always gets a laugh.
Is there something you cook at home that you would never put on a menu?
Why ask it
Often it is food they grew up on, or something too plain or too cheap to charge for. Ask why it would not work on the menu. The reason, whether price, pride or nobody ordering it, says as much about restaurants as about the dish.
What do you love eating that you are slightly embarrassed by?
Why ask it
Nearly everyone has one: a petrol-station sandwich, a particular brand of crisps, a fast-food order they will defend in detail. It works well in front of a class or an audience because it puts the chef and the room on the same level.
Do you still enjoy eating out, or has the job ruined it?
Why ask it
Some cannot stop auditing the seasoning; others say it is the only time anyone feeds them. Ask what they notice first when they sit down in someone else's restaurant. It is as likely to be the lighting or how long the first drink takes as the food.
Whose cooking do you go out of your way to eat?
Why ask it
The polite version of 'where is the best place to eat', because it asks for affection and not a ranking. The name may be a friend's restaurant, a noodle stall, or a relative. If it is somewhere you can get to, you have a recommendation from someone who knows.
What is the best thing you have ever eaten, and where were you?
Why ask it
The memory is often not a grand restaurant. It tends to be a place, a person and one plain thing eaten at the right moment: a tomato in a field, a bowl of noodles after a long shift. Asking where they were gets you the story and not only the dish.
What is the strangest thing a customer has ever asked you to make?
Why ask it
Every kitchen has one: a steak cooked until grey and then sent back as tough, a dessert with the sugar left out, a birthday cake for a dog. Ask whether they made it. Plenty of chefs will cook almost anything once if the request comes with a please.
What music is on in the kitchen during prep, and who gets to pick it?
Why ask it
Who controls the speaker is a real point of kitchen politics, and chefs enjoy explaining the rules. Some rooms rotate by day, some give it to whoever arrived first, and some go silent the moment service starts. A younger audience likes hearing which song got banned.
Is there a food you cannot stand, however well it is cooked?
Why ask it
People assume a chef eats everything, so the admission is half the fun. It might be coriander, liver, or something they had to prep by the crate as a trainee. Ask whether it is on their menu anyway, because it sometimes is.
If you could only cook with five ingredients for the rest of your life, which five?
Why ask it
Watch them count on their fingers and argue with themselves about whether salt is a free pass. The list shows what their cooking rests on once the extras are gone: usually a fat, an acid and an onion of some kind before anything expensive. Then ask what they would make first.
What is the oddest thing you have ever eaten, and would you eat it again?
Why ask it
A good one from children, who will want details. Chefs travel to eat and get handed things by suppliers, so the story is often about a market stall or a fisherman's lunch. The second half matters, since 'yes, tomorrow' and 'never' are equally good answers.
Who cooks at your house on your day off?
Why ask it
A lot of chefs do not, and say so happily. A partner, a parent or a takeaway menu does the job, and the chef washes up. If they do cook, ask what the family requests, which is seldom anything from the restaurant.
Did you ever get a kitchen nickname, and what did you do to earn it?
Why ask it
Nicknames in kitchens tend to come from one bad day: a dropped tray, a burnt batch, an odd lunch. If they have one they will usually tell it against themselves. Leave it alone if they say it is not repeatable, and ask what they call the newest cook instead.
What would you be doing now if you had never set foot in a kitchen?
Why ask it
Once they have relaxed it gets a real answer, and often a surprising one: a mechanic, a musician, a teacher. Listen for what the other job shares with cooking. Working with their hands and seeing a result the same day come up a great deal.
What would you choose as a last meal, and who would cook it?
Why ask it
An old favourite in chef interviews, so expect a ready answer and a simple plate. Who cooks it is the part they may not have rehearsed. When the name is a parent or grandparent, ask what that person made best.
What would you cook if nobody had to pay for it?
Why ask it
Every menu is a compromise with what customers will pay and how long they will wait. Take the bill away and you hear what that compromise ruled out: an ingredient too expensive to sell, a technique that takes three days, a dish that only works for a table of two. It is a good one to finish on.
Talking to a working chef
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
When to ask
Never during service, and not right before it
From an hour or so before doors until the last table has ordered, a chef has no attention to give you. In most restaurants the usable windows are mid afternoon, between lunch and dinner, or after close once the kitchen has been cleaned down. Ask which they prefer.
Ask for a length of time and stick to it
Twenty minutes, kept to exactly, is the kind of request that gets a yes the second time as well. Chefs work to the clock all day and notice when someone treats their time as elastic.
Go on their quiet day
Every restaurant has a slow day. It is often early in the week, though some places are closed then altogether, so ask which afternoon suits them. A chef on a slow Tuesday is a different person from a chef on a Friday.
Getting past the stock answers
- 1Ask about a specific dish rather than about food in general. Concrete questions get concrete answers.
- 2Follow any principle with "can you give me an example from this week". Philosophy is rehearsed; last Thursday is not.
- 3Ask what something costs or how long it takes. Numbers snap the conversation out of promotional mode.
- 4Let a pause sit after an answer about a mistake or a former boss. The second sentence is usually the interesting one.
- 5If they say local, seasonal or sustainable, ask who the supplier is and how often the delivery comes. Not to catch them out, just because the detail is the story.
- 6Ask what you should have asked. Chefs often want to talk about the part of the job nobody enquires about, usually the ordering, the rota or the money.
If you want to work in a kitchen
- Ask what the rota really looks like, including split shifts and how many weekends off a month.
- Ask what happened to the last two people who did the job you are asking about.
- Ask whether you can spend a day in the kitchen instead of talking about it. A shift washing and prepping teaches more than any answer. Whether a trial shift is paid, and how old you have to be to do one, depends on where you live, so ask how they handle it.
- Ask which section they would start you on and what you would be expected to know by month three.
- Ask about staff food and breaks. It sounds small and it tells you how the kitchen treats people.
If it is for a class or a career project
- Say at the start that it is for school and how long you need. A message or a mid-afternoon call to the restaurant, asking for a quarter of an hour, is the request most likely to get a yes.
- Pick eight to ten questions, not the whole list: one or two openers, most of the rest from the career group, and one of the fun ones to finish.
- Ask for ages, job titles and clock times as you go. "I started at sixteen on pot wash" is a line you can use. "I worked my way up" is not.
- Check how they want to be named and how the restaurant is spelled before you leave.
- Send a short thank-you afterwards, and the finished piece if you are allowed to share it.
If you want cooking advice
- Bring one real problem from your own kitchen: the sauce that split, the chicken that dried out. A chef can diagnose a particular failure far better than they can answer "any tips?"
- Say what you cook on. Advice built around a restaurant range does not transfer to a small electric hob unless they know that is what you have.
- Ask what right looks, sounds or smells like. Those cues are the part a recipe leaves out.
- At a cooking class or a chef's table, wait for a lull in the plating. A question fired at someone mid-task gets half an answer.
If it is an online ask-me-anything
- Read what has already been asked. The question about why they became a chef will be there, and a repeat gets skipped.
- Ask one question per post. A list of five tends to get the easiest one answered and the rest ignored.
- Say in a line who you are: a home cook, a student, someone who works in a kitchen. The same question gets a different answer for each.
- The home cooking questions and the fun ones suit a public thread. Anything about pay, suppliers or a former boss is better kept for a private conversation.
If you are writing it up
- Ask before you record, and say where the piece will appear.
- Read supplier names, dish names and any numbers back to them before you publish. They are easy to get wrong.
- Check whether they want colleagues named. Kitchen staff often have views about a previous employer that they do not want in print.
- Do not turn a passing complaint about a supplier or a landlord into the headline. It ends the relationship, and other chefs may hear about it.
Things that land badly
- Television references to shouting chefs, especially as an opener.
- Opening with a request for the recipe of their best-known dish, or for a version you can make at home in twenty minutes. Ask how the dish came about and the recipe sometimes follows.
- Asking what the best restaurant in town is. They have to work with those people.
- Quoting a bad review at them. Ask whether they read reviews and let them choose which one to talk about.
- Treating the conversation as a free consultation for a restaurant you are thinking of opening.
- Asking whether they think a rival's food is any good. If they want to say it, they will.