I am seriously over the lousy job market and outlook in Architecture. Have decided to pursue a career as a Chef and am going to begin Culinary School in the fall. Any other necters on here considered becoming a chef?
snook_dude
Jan 13, 12 6:25 pm
Being a Chef is like being and Architect....Lots of fricking work. I would suggest you learn some Spanish before your out of school if you don't know any now. Remember Kitchens are Hot in the Winter and Hot...Hot in the Summer.
I have a few restaurant designs behind me and I'm always amazed at how hard the Chef has to work, nothing like the guys on the TV.
b3tadine[sutures]
Jan 13, 12 7:33 pm
i did think about and started my own Food Network show to boot! my name is guy fieri.
sameolddoctor
Jan 13, 12 8:25 pm
Actually the chefs on TV also work pretty hard! If you think the money is bad in architecture, wait till you start your career as a chef. The hours are much longer and it is much more physically intense to boot.
Steven Ward
Jan 13, 12 9:07 pm
A good friend of mine from BArch bolted after being out of school for a year or so. Too much stress. [ha!]
Started working his way up through a restaurant kitchen, they sent him to culinary school, and he was chef in several places before opening a place with a partner in Barcelona. He's worked incredibly hard, and it's worked!
Phillip Crosby
Jan 13, 12 9:43 pm
if i ever had to leave architecture i would go to culinary school to become a chef... at one point my wife and i were talking about opening a food truck...
I knew someone at SOM SF who was a wizard with Digital Project, and now she is a Chef.
timothysadler®
Jan 14, 12 11:17 pm
I know a guy who talks like Issac Hayes, I think his name is Chef.
mfrech
Jan 17, 12 4:25 pm
back in the 80s, my uncle spent 3+ years in arch school at Michigan before ditching it all and becoming a chef. now he's one hell of a chef/restaurateur. snook and co. are right -it's as all-consuming a life as (if not more so than) architecture. running a restaurant surely has its parallels with running an arch firm.
note: he strongly advised not going into architecture.
LeArchitectChef
Jan 18, 12 10:22 am
The Food Network really does a bad job glamorizing Chef life.. It is very demanding with long hours and low pay, so yes, very much similar to architecture. But I think Hollywood does the same thing when it shows Architects in movies.. I have always loved cooking and worked waiting tables to get through undergrad, and rather enjoyed the face time you get with strangers daily. Culinary arts seems to be a good fit for someone with an architectural background given the creativity involved. The only drawback would be the schedule especially when you have a family. I just don't see things turning around in architecture anytime soon, seems to be a surplus of space available and it will be sometime before the demand is what it was 10 years ago. However people continue to eat everyday.
Keith Carlson
Jan 18, 12 10:52 am
A friend of mine from high school has his own restaurant, he worked for awhile for Bobby Flay. He's doing great now, but I know he has had to work his tail off to put it all together. TV is a mirage, nothing in reality is like it, I mean look at that "shark tank" show, do you really think that is how start ups work? (I still love the show, but it's entertainment not an accurate portrayal of a business process)
One aspect of the restaurant business is you have to be onsite to make it work, which also means you are there working when everyone else is taking time off, evenings, holidays, weekends etc...You have to manage staff, deliveries, marketing, vendors, accounting, customers, sometimes irate ones...hmmm sounds a bit like project management in architecture....
LeChef, I would be happy to put you in touch with my friend, I bet he knows everything there is know about this space. Send me a private message and I'll get you his e-mail.
x-jla
Jan 18, 12 2:37 pm
check out Gordon Matta Clark. He was an architect/artist turned chef.
x-jla
Jan 18, 12 2:41 pm
I was thinking about doing this too. I am a friggin good cook and would rather be on my feet then on my ass!
Barry Lehrman
Jan 18, 12 4:03 pm
Corb had his own cafe in his house/office.
will galloway
Jan 18, 12 9:10 pm
went the other way myself. was sous-chef at hotel in my early 20's. loved the job, lousy pay, long hours. in hindsight it was a much less stressful time than running an office, but then i was working for hotel so the salary was assured. people were also quite fun. much easier to talk to than architects (we're such a serious lot). it is worth pointing out that the chef did not do a whole lot of actual cooking. that was my job. his job was at least 50% administration and shmoozing. no idea how it works for star chefs but that was the model i saw.
am sure is obvious but being a chef and running a restaurant are entirely different jobs. running restaurant is much harder. where i am in tokyo the restaurants across the street from my office are constantly changing and it is not really about the food in the end either. kind of like architecture in a lot of ways.
x-jla
Jan 18, 12 11:32 pm
Yeah the grass is always greener I guess. I love architecture too much to cross over anyway, but I am a damn good cook.
Orhan Ayyüce
Jan 19, 12 12:25 am
similar observations as galloway's experience. worked in the kitchen during my last year in architecture school. not as advanced as sous-chef but sort of working my way towards it. yes, much more fun than architectural office but a lot more physical and abusive too. a lots of yelling and fights among the cooks with funny pranks and deliberately nationalist jokes that didn't hurt your feelings. all stayed in the kitchen and in the parking lot. imagine a kitchen of greeks, a turk, germans, mexicans, a porto rican and a japanese, all cooking french peasant food and other stuff with mediterranean dna. it was a big kitchen of approx. 20 people. i am glad i got commercial cooking out of my system at an early age. didn't like getting up 3 am and start dicing onions and boiling chicken at 4. just weeks before owning my own knife i decided on architecture.
i think being a chef is a long treacherous road. you are always walking on the edge of fucking something up around late deliveries, no shows, power shortages, industrial hazards and accidents, stress, covering other people's fuck ups daily, and hardly any social life since you only sleep and work... big time speed use.
but it can be a lot of fun and better job situation after school. i have heard of people studying in the bay area, interning in grass valley and moving down to los angeles and ending up in chateau marmont kitchen.
recommended reading: down and out in paris and london by george orwell
will galloway
Jan 19, 12 3:26 am
very similar experience orhan. i had own knives before quitting to go to university and was saving to trade up to high end henckels (i had non 5 star set but could borrow chefs). still long for them occasionally. funny thing, the experience set my body clock to early morning ever since. some experiences really are forever.
great book. very familiar even now
zetre1
Jan 19, 12 10:32 am
Fergus Henderson studied at the AA before opening the St John restaurants in London and writing Nose to Tail Eating.
mdler
Jan 19, 12 3:47 pm
I did a stint in the restaurant world..built a food truck (actually an Airstream) and worked for Skillet Street Food here in Seattle. Then went on to design and develop a brick + mortar space for them. The restaurant world is much harder than the architecture world.
Also, I would not recommend getting into the food truck business. It is much harder to be successful with a food truck than a brick and mortar restaurant for a number of reasons
PencilPusher
Jan 19, 12 5:27 pm
I was in the industry for 13 years and worked my way up to being a sous-chef in Chicago's fine dining world. I left the business to go back to get my degree in architecture at 32. My piece of advice....go do a stage (Pronounced sta'j) at a restaurant where you think you might like to work before going to culinary school. You will need to invest about $500.00 in your personal knives first. $100.00 in rubber birkenstock kitchen clogs. And make sure you can cut a potato into perfect 1/8" dice in less then 3 minutes.
If you go for a stage, be honest about what you are doing there so they know how to handle you in the kitchen (put you in a corner and tell you not to move until someone needs 50 lbs of carrots peeled). Kitchens are dangerous.
Feel free to contact me if you want to ask questions.
Xavier Mouche
Dec 19, 16 12:06 pm
Hello Everyone,
Thank you for your very interesting comments and experiences.
I've started as chef and worked in numerous countries for high scale hotels and restaurants (five star properties and michelin starred restaurants). Throughout my years as a chef I also had the opportunity to contribute to many hospitality project opening which involved working with architects. In the late 90's I had the opportunity of a lifetime, when I was commissioned to design all the food and beverage outlets in a private yacht worth $ 980 million us dollars for the Sultan of Brunei. After this opportunity I could afford to put myself through hotel management school in Switzerland and a bachelor of environment design (interior design and architecture). Also for numerous years, whilst working in hospitality, I also studied fine arts (drawing, painting and photography) which has always been a passion of mine and that also led me to study design. Anyway, after graduating from architecture I had to start right at the bottom doing boring cad work and could not find an office that would recognize my previous skills and knowledge as an experienced chef and hotelier, and this, in terms of having a sound understanding on all operational technicalities and logistics in the framework of hospitality, which I though would be an asset for any architectural firms doing any hospitality work? Now I got fed up with the low pay and went back to Switzerland to assist my mother and where I got a job teaching hotel management at a hotel school. Although this job is good and interesting, there is still a side of me that is missing creativity and I feel a bit sad that I put all this effort in studying architecture and working for peanuts in leading firms for three years (post grad) and not being able to profit from the experience.
Has anyone have any recommendations? that would be very much appreciated.
I am seriously over the lousy job market and outlook in Architecture. Have decided to pursue a career as a Chef and am going to begin Culinary School in the fall. Any other necters on here considered becoming a chef?
Being a Chef is like being and Architect....Lots of fricking work. I would suggest you learn some Spanish before your out of school if you don't know any now. Remember Kitchens are Hot in the Winter and Hot...Hot in the Summer.
I have a few restaurant designs behind me and I'm always amazed at how hard the Chef has to work, nothing like the guys on the TV.
i did think about and started my own Food Network show to boot! my name is guy fieri.
Actually the chefs on TV also work pretty hard! If you think the money is bad in architecture, wait till you start your career as a chef. The hours are much longer and it is much more physically intense to boot.
A good friend of mine from BArch bolted after being out of school for a year or so. Too much stress. [ha!] Started working his way up through a restaurant kitchen, they sent him to culinary school, and he was chef in several places before opening a place with a partner in Barcelona. He's worked incredibly hard, and it's worked!
if i ever had to leave architecture i would go to culinary school to become a chef... at one point my wife and i were talking about opening a food truck...
www.eatcoolhaus.com
I knew someone at SOM SF who was a wizard with Digital Project, and now she is a Chef.
I know a guy who talks like Issac Hayes, I think his name is Chef.
back in the 80s, my uncle spent 3+ years in arch school at Michigan before ditching it all and becoming a chef. now he's one hell of a chef/restaurateur. snook and co. are right -it's as all-consuming a life as (if not more so than) architecture. running a restaurant surely has its parallels with running an arch firm.
note: he strongly advised not going into architecture.
The Food Network really does a bad job glamorizing Chef life.. It is very demanding with long hours and low pay, so yes, very much similar to architecture. But I think Hollywood does the same thing when it shows Architects in movies.. I have always loved cooking and worked waiting tables to get through undergrad, and rather enjoyed the face time you get with strangers daily. Culinary arts seems to be a good fit for someone with an architectural background given the creativity involved. The only drawback would be the schedule especially when you have a family. I just don't see things turning around in architecture anytime soon, seems to be a surplus of space available and it will be sometime before the demand is what it was 10 years ago. However people continue to eat everyday.
A friend of mine from high school has his own restaurant, he worked for awhile for Bobby Flay. He's doing great now, but I know he has had to work his tail off to put it all together. TV is a mirage, nothing in reality is like it, I mean look at that "shark tank" show, do you really think that is how start ups work? (I still love the show, but it's entertainment not an accurate portrayal of a business process)
One aspect of the restaurant business is you have to be onsite to make it work, which also means you are there working when everyone else is taking time off, evenings, holidays, weekends etc...You have to manage staff, deliveries, marketing, vendors, accounting, customers, sometimes irate ones...hmmm sounds a bit like project management in architecture....
LeChef, I would be happy to put you in touch with my friend, I bet he knows everything there is know about this space. Send me a private message and I'll get you his e-mail.
check out Gordon Matta Clark. He was an architect/artist turned chef.
I was thinking about doing this too. I am a friggin good cook and would rather be on my feet then on my ass!
Corb had his own cafe in his house/office.
went the other way myself. was sous-chef at hotel in my early 20's. loved the job, lousy pay, long hours. in hindsight it was a much less stressful time than running an office, but then i was working for hotel so the salary was assured. people were also quite fun. much easier to talk to than architects (we're such a serious lot). it is worth pointing out that the chef did not do a whole lot of actual cooking. that was my job. his job was at least 50% administration and shmoozing. no idea how it works for star chefs but that was the model i saw.
am sure is obvious but being a chef and running a restaurant are entirely different jobs. running restaurant is much harder. where i am in tokyo the restaurants across the street from my office are constantly changing and it is not really about the food in the end either. kind of like architecture in a lot of ways.
Yeah the grass is always greener I guess. I love architecture too much to cross over anyway, but I am a damn good cook.
similar observations as galloway's experience. worked in the kitchen during my last year in architecture school. not as advanced as sous-chef but sort of working my way towards it. yes, much more fun than architectural office but a lot more physical and abusive too. a lots of yelling and fights among the cooks with funny pranks and deliberately nationalist jokes that didn't hurt your feelings. all stayed in the kitchen and in the parking lot. imagine a kitchen of greeks, a turk, germans, mexicans, a porto rican and a japanese, all cooking french peasant food and other stuff with mediterranean dna. it was a big kitchen of approx. 20 people. i am glad i got commercial cooking out of my system at an early age. didn't like getting up 3 am and start dicing onions and boiling chicken at 4. just weeks before owning my own knife i decided on architecture.
i think being a chef is a long treacherous road. you are always walking on the edge of fucking something up around late deliveries, no shows, power shortages, industrial hazards and accidents, stress, covering other people's fuck ups daily, and hardly any social life since you only sleep and work... big time speed use.
but it can be a lot of fun and better job situation after school. i have heard of people studying in the bay area, interning in grass valley and moving down to los angeles and ending up in chateau marmont kitchen.
recommended reading: down and out in paris and london by george orwell
very similar experience orhan. i had own knives before quitting to go to university and was saving to trade up to high end henckels (i had non 5 star set but could borrow chefs). still long for them occasionally. funny thing, the experience set my body clock to early morning ever since. some experiences really are forever.
great book. very familiar even now
Fergus Henderson studied at the AA before opening the St John restaurants in London and writing Nose to Tail Eating.
I did a stint in the restaurant world..built a food truck (actually an Airstream) and worked for Skillet Street Food here in Seattle. Then went on to design and develop a brick + mortar space for them. The restaurant world is much harder than the architecture world.
Also, I would not recommend getting into the food truck business. It is much harder to be successful with a food truck than a brick and mortar restaurant for a number of reasons
I was in the industry for 13 years and worked my way up to being a sous-chef in Chicago's fine dining world. I left the business to go back to get my degree in architecture at 32. My piece of advice....go do a stage (Pronounced sta'j) at a restaurant where you think you might like to work before going to culinary school. You will need to invest about $500.00 in your personal knives first. $100.00 in rubber birkenstock kitchen clogs. And make sure you can cut a potato into perfect 1/8" dice in less then 3 minutes.
If you go for a stage, be honest about what you are doing there so they know how to handle you in the kitchen (put you in a corner and tell you not to move until someone needs 50 lbs of carrots peeled). Kitchens are dangerous.
Feel free to contact me if you want to ask questions.
Hello Everyone,
Thank you for your very interesting comments and experiences.
I've started as chef and worked in numerous countries for high scale hotels and restaurants (five star properties and michelin starred restaurants). Throughout my years as a chef I also had the opportunity to contribute to many hospitality project opening which involved working with architects. In the late 90's I had the opportunity of a lifetime, when I was commissioned to design all the food and beverage outlets in a private yacht worth $ 980 million us dollars for the Sultan of Brunei. After this opportunity I could afford to put myself through hotel management school in Switzerland and a bachelor of environment design (interior design and architecture). Also for numerous years, whilst working in hospitality, I also studied fine arts (drawing, painting and photography) which has always been a passion of mine and that also led me to study design. Anyway, after graduating from architecture I had to start right at the bottom doing boring cad work and could not find an office that would recognize my previous skills and knowledge as an experienced chef and hotelier, and this, in terms of having a sound understanding on all operational technicalities and logistics in the framework of hospitality, which I though would be an asset for any architectural firms doing any hospitality work? Now I got fed up with the low pay and went back to Switzerland to assist my mother and where I got a job teaching hotel management at a hotel school. Although this job is good and interesting, there is still a side of me that is missing creativity and I feel a bit sad that I put all this effort in studying architecture and working for peanuts in leading firms for three years (post grad) and not being able to profit from the experience.
Has anyone have any recommendations? that would be very much appreciated.
Best greetings! Xavier