Questions to Ask Chefs
Questions for talking to a working chef, whether you are interviewing one, taking a class, or have been introduced after service, moving from easy openers to how the kitchen and the trade actually run.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What should I order tonight?
Why ask it
The most natural opening there is, and it usually gets you the dish the kitchen is proudest of rather than the one that sells. If the answer comes with a reason, a supplier, a short season, a technique they have been working on, you have found the thread to follow.
What did you eat before service?
Why ask it
Staff food is unguarded and often the best question in the set. It reveals what they actually like to cook when nobody is paying, and it is a much easier question to answer at the end of a shift than anything about philosophy.
Which dish on the menu do people order least, and why do you keep it on?
Why ask it
The answer separates conviction from commerce. Something kept for one regular, for balance, or because the chef will not give up on it, tells you more about the kitchen's priorities than the signature dish does.
What was the first thing you learned to cook properly?
Why ask it
Better than asking what got them into cooking, which produces a rehearsed story. A specific first dish tends to produce the kitchen it was learned in, the person who taught them, and how they were corrected, which is where the real history is.
What is on the menu because of who you buy from?
Why ask it
This turns a vague answer about sourcing into a concrete one about a named grower or fishmonger. It also shows whether supply drives the menu or the menu is written first and ingredients found to fit it.
What do you cook for yourself on a day off?
Why ask it
Almost always simpler than the restaurant food and often from another cuisine entirely. It shows what they find restful, and it is a far more useful answer for a home cook than anything from the tasting menu.
Which technique took you longest to get right?
Why ask it
You get a specific difficulty rather than a list of skills: an emulsion that kept breaking, pastry in a hot kitchen, timing fish. That difficulty is usually also the thing they are best at teaching, because they remember failing at it.
What do home cooks get wrong most often?
Why ask it
Reliably generous answers, because most chefs have watched it happen. Expect the ordinary ones: underseasoning, crowded pans, no rest, and not enough heat. Ask what the fix is, since the diagnosis alone will not change anything at your stove.
How do you decide a dish is finished and can go on the menu?
Why ask it
This gets at the actual test they apply, which is more revealing than asking about creativity. Some cook it thirty times, some put it on and change it nightly, some hand it to a commis to see if it survives being made by someone else.
What is the hardest station on your line?
Why ask it
Ask a chef who runs a kitchen and you learn where the pressure sits and who they trust. It is also the question most likely to get a real answer during a busy week, because it is about the room rather than about them.
How do you get twelve tables' food out at the same time?
Why ask it
Coordination is the part of the job that is invisible from the dining room and the part chefs find most interesting to explain. Expect prep, order of cooking, and the calls made by whoever is on the pass, none of which is really about recipes.
What happens when a dish comes back?
Why ask it
How a kitchen handles a return shows how it treats mistakes generally. Kitchens where the plate is remade without discussion and kitchens where somebody is shouted at produce very different food over time, and different staff turnover.
How do you use up what you would otherwise throw away?
Why ask it
More concrete than asking about sustainability and harder to answer with a slogan. Stocks, trim, bread, whey, the pieces of the vegetable nobody plates. The answers are also directly usable at home, unlike most of what a restaurant does.
What have you taken off the menu that you regret?
Why ask it
Invites a real judgement rather than a defence of the current list. What was removed for cost, for labour, or because it did not sell tells you the constraints the kitchen works under, which is the part diners never see.
What do you look for when you hire someone with no experience?
Why ask it
Answers here are unusually consistent and worth hearing: turning up, keeping a clean station, taking correction without sulking. Almost never talent. Useful if you or someone you know is thinking about the trade.
How has the way you run the kitchen changed since you started?
Why ask it
This gets at the shift in kitchen culture over recent decades, and most chefs who have been in it twenty years have a clear view of it. Whether they think the change has been good is where the interesting part is.
What is the part of the job people would be surprised by?
Why ask it
Usually the administration: rotas, ordering, margins, plumbing, staffing at short notice. Cooking is often a minority of the week. A chef who says the surprising part is how little they cook is telling you what the role actually is.
How do you keep this work up for another decade?
Why ask it
A serious question about a trade with long hours, late finishes and a heavy drinking culture. Some have an answer about hours or ownership, some do not. Ask it privately and without the expectation of an upbeat reply.
Whose cooking do you go out of your way to eat?
Why ask it
Better than asking about influences, because it points at somewhere you can actually go. It also shows what they rate when they are not the one being judged, which is often much plainer than their own menu.
If I only got better at one thing this year, what should it be?
Why ask it
A good closing question because it asks for a single answer rather than a survey. Most will pick seasoning, heat control, or knife work, and will tell you how to practise it, which is the part you can take home and use.
Talking to a working chef
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
When to ask
Not during service
Between roughly seven and ten in the evening a chef has nothing to give you, however friendly they are. Mid-afternoon, at the end of the night, or on a quiet early weekday are the windows that exist.
Ask about the specific, not the general
"What is your philosophy?" gets a press answer. "Why is there anchovy in this?" gets a real one. Concrete questions about something in front of you are answerable while tired and lead somewhere on their own.
Say what you want to learn
A home cook, a journalist and someone thinking about culinary school need different answers. Saying which you are lets the chef pitch it usefully rather than guessing at your level.
Ask about the kitchen, not just the food
Rotas, suppliers, hiring and margins are what most of the job consists of, and chefs are rarely asked about them. These questions often produce the most candid part of the conversation.
What not to do
Do not ask for the recipe
It puts them in an awkward position and rarely helps, since restaurant methods assume equipment and prep you do not have. Ask about the technique or the ratio instead, which they can usually give freely.
Do not open with television
Questions about famous chefs or competition shows are what everyone asks and produce nothing. If they want to talk about that they will bring it up.
Do not test them
Questions designed to show what you know turn the conversation into a contest. You will get less than if you simply admit what you cannot do yet.
Do not ask them to judge your cooking blind
Without tasting it there is nothing to say, and you will get politeness. Describe the specific thing that went wrong instead and ask what causes it.
Follow-ups that keep it going
When an answer is too short
- "How would I know if I had done that right?"
- "What happens if I get it slightly wrong?"
- "Who taught you that?"
- "Would you do it the same way at home?"
When you want the practical version
- "What would you substitute if I cannot get that?"
- "Does it matter if my pan is smaller?"
- "How far ahead can I make it?"
- "What is the one step I should not skip?"