September 3, 2010

A line cook is someone whose job it is to prepare the food and also participates on the hot line in the kitchen. Some line cooks are assigned to certain positions such as sauté, grill or bake. The line cook works under the Sous Chef. A line cook will be responsible for many things in the kitchen. Some of their job functions include following and reading a recipes. All food that is to be prepared must be prepared exactly how the wait staff writes it down on the guest check or in most restaurants where the orders are entered into a computer.

The line cook must also have a great understanding of working with sauces, stocks, soups and overall cooking procedures. They must also be familiar with commercial stoves, ovens, broilers, slickers, steamers, kettles and pots and pans. Line chefs also responsible for transporting food from the truck to the restaurant. They must be able to with stand the heat of the kitchen both figuratively and literally.

Line cooks should attend culinary school; these schools and classes are excellent training tools that you will need to get the right background in the chosen field of becoming a chef. You have to work very well under pressure and you must also be an accurate and fast.

There is no room in the kitchen for people who work slowly.

You really have to have the right temperament to work as a line cook. Here is a checklist of what some restaurants use to help their line cooks adjust and continue to work well. They are judged by their abilities to complete food handling sanitation course, they must learn to listen carefully, once the order comes in they have to listen carefully as to what the customer wants and get it right. They must be team players because when you work in a kitchen when one-person falls the others fall as well.

They must possess communication skills, so if you have a problem with an order you can get your point across to another chef. They must also know all the ingredients in everything on the menu. Overall, if you can follow a recipe and take orders then you may have the type of personality of a line cook. There is extreme pressure in working in a professional kitchen. Everyone around you in under pressure and there will be times when you will get yelled at.

There will be days that you will get things wrong. Experience makes you stronger. If you are looking to become a line chef then make sure that you can mentally handle it. It will be stressful and with working with the heat of the kitchen it can be very hard to handle. If you are looking to get started then search local restaurants and see if they are looking for someone. Just getting your food in the door can help. If you have had a job where you were a line cook in a school or a nursing home or maybe a hospital cafeteria, it is a start.