SF Bay Area Pastry Chefs?

Hi back at ya!

As a caterer and someone who uses on call staff only, I look for people with experience.

Sadly, the San Francisco Bay Area no longer has the rich talent pool it used to. Because of this, you may be able to get a position based on your prior experience, but a pastry cert wouldn't hurt.

The type of place you look for will make a difference too. Some cooks just want to make a name for themselves at any cost. Consequently, some restaurant owners are cautious about hiring Prima donnas, so don't be one, and look for a place that needs someone solid. Since you have experience, you already have more value as an employee than the average culinary grad.

ALSO: school is expensive, so unless you are getting grants, or are dead serious about this. Try getting back in the kitchen first.

 

Hello,

Just an advice, as what Quelper said:

"ALSO: school is expensive, so unless you are getting grants, or are dead serious about this. Try getting back in the kitchen first."

And also, you are 43 yrs. old. It's better to use your past experience than shifting into another category. It's like you are starting from

the beginning again. Remember time is running out for you.  

 

OMG! If "time is running out" for a 43 yr old, what about a 68 yr old????? /img/vbsmilies/smilies/crazy.gif

 

I used to live in Healdsburg and worked at a very nice, very famous restaurant there.  I did not go to the CCA, but did go to the Le Cordon Bleu school of Chicago.  At the restaurant, we had several grads from CCA and one from SRJC.  We all had relatively the same amount of working knowledge--- by that I mean knowledge that applied to work.  And that is one advantage of SRJC over CCA or anywhere else.  They will be more focused on teaching you the skills that will serve you as a cook/baker immediately, where as LCB schools and the like focus more on teaching someone the conceptual side of how to cook.  This may or may not be making sense in the post, but it is in my head Lol.  What I'm saying is that if you went to an LCB school, you might learn more about cooking altogether, but you will learn a lot of things that are not necessarily applicable to someone on the job market at the time.  So it may not be worth the extra money.

But really, CCA is probably going to cost you 35k to get your Associate's, I'd imagine CCA would cost $15-20k for the certificate, and I'd bet SRJC would cost less than 5k.  If you're going to spend 5k (at least) then I would actually recommend using that 5k to pay for living expenses while you do extended stages at several different places--- but the best places you can find.  For example, if you don't know whether you want to be a bread baker at a restaurant, or a pastry chef, or run your own bakery, doing an extended stage can allow you to do them all.  5k should get you several months (even somewhere like SF) to play around on.  So spend a month working for free for the  baking portion of the best restaurant that will let you in.  Then spend a month staging at the best bakery that will let you in.  Then spend a month staging with a super talented pastry chef.  At the end of those three months, I promise you that not only will you have more knowledge than you would have gotten spending that money on school, but you'll have a much better idea of exactly what it is that you want to do within the world of pastry, AND you'll also have 3 months worth of experience at well-known places, and perhaps you'll have made some lasting culinary professional contacts in the meantime.

That is my advice.  This is coming from someone who DID spend the money on my associate's at an LCB school.  If I had to do it over again, I'd follow the advice I just gave to you.  Now don't get me wrong, because I can't complain.  In my schooling I made a lot of contacts, gained a lot of knowledge, and was forced to study things that I didn't need to know, didn't want to know, but am now glad that I do know.  I'm just saying that there are many ways to end up where you want to be, and I think learning on the job is a good way.

 

Stages are indeed common--- very very common now.  Although the most common don't last longer than a service or maybe a weekend (for example, I try to stage on my days off, but I still have my own restaurant to work at, so I can't do it more than that).  But it is a great way to make contacts, and it is good for both the restaurant and the stage.  The restaurant gets some free labor (even if it is just stuff like peeling vegetables) and the stage gets the experience of meeting good cooks, good chefs, and watching how a truly professional kitchen is run.  I would find the places you want to apply and then send them a cover letter explaining your situation and asking for a stage (make sure to specify that it would be longer than a single service) and then a copy of your resume as well.  If you do get a stage, don't be discouraged when they have you doing menial tasks at first.  They need to build up a certain level of trust in you and in your abilities before they can allow you to work with some of the more important stuff.  Still, if you eager to learn and willing to work your ass off, it can be an incredibly eye-opening experience.

Let me say that none of the information I learned in my program was really "useless."  I'm of the opinion that the more you know, the better you can be.  So while the following examples might not be things that I use on the job, and they might be things I will most likely never use on the job, I am glad that I know them now and that I could use them if the need ever arose.  But on that list of things would include: working with aspic, making pate en croute, making crazy garnish work out of vegetables, like roses out of tomato peel, daikon statues, ice sculpting, and things of that nature.  I understand that there are some places that still use some of these, especially things like pate en croute.  I'm just saying that if I were 20 years older than I am now, and didn't want to spend the extra time or money learning things that I would most likely not use, then I would not go the route that would teach me all of those things.

Whatever you do, best of luck.  I'm sure it's an exciting and scary time for you.