What skills does a Sous Chef need?

Organisational Skills

Good sous chefs must be extremely organised because their tasks may vary. They’ll include things like assisting the executive chef with meal planning, keeping tabs on kitchen supplies and ingredients when it comes time to prepare meals, making sure the kitchen is up to hygiene standards in time for daily service and much, much more.

Logistics are also part of a sous chefs duties. Scheduling the other kitchen staff and making sure they arrive on time, as well as filling in personally if sometime is late or sick.

Leadership and Communion Skills

These skills go hand in hand for a good sous chef. While the executive chef is technically in charge of the kitchen, it’s the sous chef who performs much of the hands on management. Ideally, a sous chef will be able to train and supervise the kitchen staff and then help them carry out the executive chef’s intentions for cooking and plating the meal.

The sous chef must project confidence and an air of authority required to manage staff in an often busy, loud and stressful environment. Keeping the entire team working towards a common goal is a big undertaking. It requires clear communication and an ability to motivate and guide everyone, all while performing their own tasks as a cook on the line.

Successful sous chefs can juggle all of these demands, even when the team is feeling overworked and stressed.

Reliability

This is the foundation of a successful working relationship between the executive chef and the sous chef. For any kitchen to succeed, the lead chef must trust that his or her ‘right hand’ is competent, trustworthy and loyal. What makes a good sous chef is the ability to earn and maintain this trust, and there are many ways to do this when starting out in a new kitchen. Arriving early, staying late, completing tasks ahead of schedule…these actions will set a successful sous chef apart.