Chef impostor syndrome.
It sometimes feels like I cheated my way into becoming a professional chef.
I brought with me a good amount of knowledge, decent technique, and a hefty portion of motivation and curiosity, but there was not much formal education or professional skill involved. Most of what I know today I learned on my own or gained from small lessons and experiences at the restaurants I worked at.
Today, I get to call myself a professional chef working at a - generally considered - pretty good restaurant in London.
While I believe that my abilities are up to scratch for my current role and job at the restaurant, I would be lying if I said that I felt completely justified in working there.
Impostor syndrome is still very real.
As is the same with many jobs, impostor syndrome as a chef can be an unnerving companion, especially when starting out. There is a bottomless well of knowledge when it comes to food, ingredients, and techniques from across the world. You may research and work with a particular cuisine for several weeks, months, years even, and perhaps still feel like you’ve barely scratched the surface. You may become fairly fluent in a particular style of cooking and remain largely unfamiliar with many other approaches. You could walk into a grocer’s when visiting a new country and not know where to begin, clueless as to which ingredient is used for what, and which ones do and don’t go together.
Ironically, the more experience I get, the more I worry about not knowing enough.
When I newly started my job as a kitchen assistant a few years ago, I did not need to worry about not having any experience working with raw fish, not knowing how to use a whetstone, make a genoise sponge, or how to peel and prep an artichoke. However now, as I am supposedly a professional chef with a few years of experience under my belt, I worry about having to admit that I may still be a complete novice in some areas. And there is always a small nagging thought at the back of my brain as I worry that I may one day ask a question so fundamentally and embarrassingly stupid that everyone around me will question why anyone would let me work as a chef in the first place.
Or worse, that this has already happened.
Impostor syndrome is not just real for current chefs, but it also holds back people interested in cheffing who may not have much or any experience yet. It certainly can feel daunting to join an experienced team of cooks and chefs if you have not worked in a kitchen before or if you feel like your abilities are not yet sufficient. I almost didn’t apply for a job at one of my favourite restaurants because I figured that, given my lack of experience, they would not consider my application anyway – I was invited to a trial shift within hours of sending out my application and got offered the job immediately after completing my trial.
So, as can be said for most cases of impostor syndrome, not only am I likely overthinking and mentally exaggerating my insufficiencies, but most people likely share the same sentiments. As such, I am now trying to suppress these moments of feeling like an imposter and instead think about cheffing as a continuous learning process.
As soon as you start working in a kitchen yourself, you realise that everyone around you is still learning as much as you are. That is not to undermine the abilities and skills of chefs, but it is merely to say that nobody ever feels complete in their knowledge.
And that’s a good thing.
A senior chef once mentioned that they would like to do a course on knife sharpening since they felt that they had always “been winging it” so far. I have heard of a head chef lifting off a recipe out of a popular food magazine and making it a signature dish at their restaurant. And any conversation about food and recipes will inevitably lead to chefs bouncing ideas off each other, suggesting one thing, asking the other’s opinion, describing a technique unfamiliar to the other, and gaining inspiration from everyone around them. Even a chef who you believe to be all-knowing and an expert in everything food related will likely be able to learn something from you too.
Naturally, impostor syndrome cannot always be sworn away by logic. But especially for those who let it hold them back from applying for jobs in kitchens, my advice is to remember that even chefs who you admire for their knowledge and skill had to start somewhere and they too may feel that they still have a lot more to learn. As long as you go in with curiosity, enthusiasm, and strong work integrity, there is no reason for you to feel like you have less of a right to be and cook there with them.