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Al Brown - Chef, Author, TV Presenter and Restaurateur

22/11/2013

I genuinely liked cooking from an early age. I did some cooking at home on the family farm in the Wairarapa and I liked baking - I was a pikelets and ginger crunch boy!


I became a chef after being a waiter. I used to love hanging out in the kitchen because the guys looked like they were having the most fun. They also got to play with fire, knives and lots of beautiful product. I trained at the New England Culinary Institute then worked at restaurants in North America and Europe before coming home to New Zealand. In 1996, my great friend Steve Logan and I opened Logan Brown Restaurant in Wellington.

In cooking you use every sense – taste, touch, sight, smell. You can even hear if the scallops cooked behind you by the sous-chef haven’t been seared properly on high enough heat because the sound is different.

We look at our restaurants as some of the finest hospitality universities in the country. It’s a place to learn. We have an internal induction programme and regular appraisals. We’ll send people on courses if the course will be useful to the person and the business. We encourage and support staff. Being at the front desk as the maitre ‘d is an ambition for both the kitchen and front of house staff. If you have maitre ‘d at Logan Brown on your CV, it’s a pretty good door-opener.

Over the years, many staff have moved from being a dishwasher to being in charge of the kitchen. Staff have to be prepared to learn, understand the business and be able to multi-task. There’s a huge feeling of achievement after a busy night with the team. It can be magic for customers and the restaurant to see a well-oiled team at work. We have one house - not back of house (kitchen) and front of house (waiters, maitre ‘d, bartenders). The one whole team makes the restaurant work.

The restaurant industry is like a bag of licorice allsorts – multi-everything! It’s even multi-cultural – you might have a dishwasher from Sri Lanka who cooks the staff a national dish for their pre-opening dinner. Working with all sorts of different people makes it very interesting.

Kitchens are exciting. A bit dangerous, theatrical and there’s a real buzz. It’s amazing how you can cook for a hundred people in a short timeframe and serve your guests something special. It’s like giving them a present on a plate.

AL BROWN

Balancing family and work is the main challenge. Hospitality is a young person’s game. As you get older you need to think of commitments other than work.

Try and get work experience in a good workplace to see if it’s the career for you. Even ask to watch so that you can observe what goes on. For example, there are no chairs in the kitchen, could you handle standing much of the day? Space in a kitchen is tight, watch the teamwork or observe the workings of a café by sitting there as a customer - watch the barista, watch what happens.

There are so many career pathways available in hospitality. If you work hard and are willing to learn, opportunities will open up for you.

Find out more about ServiceIQ's Cookery qualifications here

For more information, please contact ServiceIQ on 0800 863 693 or email intel@ServiceIQ.org.nz