Like finding needles in haystacks.

I find it extremely hard and very irritating at times. I am only 26 so it wasn't too long ago that I was just starting out. I am baffled by some of the requests made by young cooks just out of school with little to no experience. Not only wages, but the need for constant coddling...you no longer recieve a gold star for making a basic recipe it's officially your JOB to make that recipe! Also, I'm not sure who is spreading the rumor that this is a Monday through Friday 9-5 industry. I really wish they would just shut their mouth. At a time when food is being taken back to it's artisan roots, I really wish that the new young work force would take on the same mantra of working a little harder for a better product.

I would venture to say that there are plenty of good cooks out there--no more or no less than before. In my personal experience, I have worked with more good than bad. The bad have been more of a function of poor hiring by a young chef(me) than anything else. Knowing what to look for is paramount--i.e. attitude, work ethic, past employment inquiry. Thus, I would contend that the issue here doesn't necessarily fall on the talent pool, but on the chefs themselves. Everyone chef should look in the mirror first before projecting. When I first started, I didn't know a damn thing, but I had a chef who motivated me and inspired me to push and get better. The culture of the kitchen allowed for the development of good cooks.
When I look at some of these comments, it seems that there may be a detachment between cook and chef. One would be naive to expect "good cooks" to just walk in the door. Regardless of the situation, a cook of one year experience in your kitchen will be better than the one that just walked in the door. Why? They have been fostered, there has been communication, there has been mistakes made and learned from. What we do isn't so cut and dry that a good cook one place is good at the next--there are many factors involved, beginning with the chef's approach to the staff. It's not that there is any less good cooks, it's that the time isn't being placed to develop them.

OMG- so hard to find young cooks. You can't imagine! I live in Durham, where we have a huge number of great restaurants. You would think that would make folks more plentiful, but it's the opposite.

Let us chefs remind ourselves of one thing. We made it. Not by accident(most of us), but by rising above our peers and colleagues and taking risks. It has taken me a little while to realize that few people are like us…no matter the profession, so don’t expect them to be. Through staging, we can pick out the posers and wannabe “Bravolebrities”, so they present us with very little threat. Instead we look for folks with respect for the kitchen no matter the skill level. We then put them in the appropriate position and help them grow. I do spend a lot of time on looking for and cultivating talent. The way I see it there is no way around it. Surrounding yourself with the best people gives my business a chance to grow and evolve –a torch I cannot carry alone—nor want to.

Finding good help seems to get harder and harder these days. It seems as though there is a sense of entitlement with the new generation of people coming out of school. People are getting into cooking for reasons other than passion these days. There seems to be more of a focus on wanting to be a "celebrity chef" versus being a great, talented chef. Finding passion in a young candidate is where I start when looking for someone to hire, which seems more of task than it used to be.

I feel that the difficulty is finding the work ethic and altruism in new, young cooks. So many come into the game wanting to be big and famous, or flying past solid fundamentals straight to molecular gastronomy, farm-to-table, or whatever is hot at the moment, which is great, but needs to be based on a solid foundation, one done outside of a comfort zone, so that when the fundamentals are there, the choice can be made of which direction to follow.. Because, at the end of the day, you've got to know how to make a good stock, or how to braise lamb shanks, and if you skip this to jump right into the rotary evaporator, you're missing the point. On the other hand, when you have this solid foundation, whatever you're making in that rotary evaporator will be all the more awesome. Anyway, new knives and nice clogs don't make a good new cook--the desire to be a sponge and learn and work your ass off does.

It can be quite hard to find a cook that is young AND good; usually it's one or the other. The young ones tend to think they know it all, especially once they get out of culinary school; what they need to realize is once they're out of school and get a job in a restaurant, that's when the real schooling begins.

Young cooks seem to be on one side of extremes. Either they think they know everything and are hard to teach or hard working and pit their head down. In some ways telling the two apart are easy after working with them a few days. The hard part is getting the good ones in. I seems many cook already have big heads and won't listen. Finding the ones that so listen is the hard part, not picking them out of the crowd.

i have had the fortunate good luck of findind incredible young cooks...for example: Chrissy Camba, now the chef at Vincent Restaurant was working at Starbucks in Andersonville, and approached me about coming to learn the art/craft/trade...we gave her a chance and she has been a natural. Victor Morenz, my sous-chef @ HB Home Bistro, i met through the San Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef regional competition...he didn't win the regionals, but i loved his style of cooking and invited him to come to HB...he was followed by a friend of his Corey Bowers. Not to mention the current heart and soul of HB David Cooper. So chalking it up to chance and luck...i have done quite well with finding young cooks.

It's hard. It's funny Eater asked a bunch of celebrity chefs because they probably have a steady stream of comers. For us folks operating ambitious neighborhood restaurants, the challenge of finding great young cooks is constant and never ending.

Everyone wants to work for a famous chef, which is generated by publicity. It's hard to convince a naive 20-ish neophyte that they'd be better off working right next to me (25 years in the trenches and genuinely interested in each individual in my kitchen) than in the kitchen of some celebrity chef they may never meet and by whom they will certainly never have the opportunity to be taught or mentored directly.

It's hard to find good young cooks. At Big Jones, we make them.

it depends...
Did they go to CIA? FCI? SCI? Kendall? CHIC? or another school?
Did they stage at alinea? trotters? french laundry? per se? or another big name spot?
Did the spend a semester traveling across europe eating in fine restaurants?
Do they really strive to be the next best chef?

or

are they passionate about cooking?
willing to work extra hours(sometimes off the clock)?
can they handle criticsm? sarcasm? the occasional outburst of "WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?"
do they study their craft?
do they live to cook and love to eat?
are they self motivated?
do they possess common sense?
and do they know the difference between work time and play time?
can they follow both simple and difficult instructions?

truth is, all of these things matter. all of these things have the ability to bring you an amazing young, talented cook. but if they cant answer yes to the entire second group you may want to pass.
I dont believe many kids can these days. I think culinary schools are partly to blame for providing students with a false sense of entitlement when they finish school. The school itself is usually an accelerated program(read: a quick glimpse at a few different things) and the chefs in schools are NOTHING like the chefs in the real world. They are nice, forgiving and patient. so culinary schools churn out kids that expect their new "real world" chefs to believe in them when really these kids need to work double hard to prove themselves... like everyone else. I also blame the reality shows that glorify chefs for participating in ridiculous and unrealistic events making it seem like every day is a thrill ride. Every day is repetition and and refinement.
However, when you find that good young cook, latch on and foster their growth. and when you find that mediocre young cook who loves their job, latch on and train hard.

I think it has become quite difficult to find good young cooks. Most of
them just don't want to put the time in like they should, they don't come
early and don't want to stay late. Staging in a different kitchen was a
common practice for me when I was coming up in the biz, it didn't matter
what I was doing because I could watch everything and learn something. Many
of the young cooks have a lot of information in their heads given how much
culinary info is out there these days but they don't have the skills to
execute it. Just because you read a blog or some online review and you can
tell the story doesn't mean you actually know how to make that dish. I
really see a lack of ambition, everyday you should be trying to learn
something. As much as this business is an "art" its really a craft. You
should be perfecting your searing, roasting and knife skills just like a
young woodworker would perfect making a mortise and tenon joint for fine
hand crafted furniture. Every time you cook you have the ability to become
better, I just don't see that drive out of the young cooks. I'm constantly
learning, if I'm not I find something to learn about because it only makes
me stronger as a chef. Not everyone is going to be successful in this biz
just because you went to culinary school. It takes a lot of hard work &
dedication to be successful, staying up on trends and even creating new
ones. This career is about passion, and its your passion for this business
that pushes you to be better. Its not the money or the fame, its making the
perfect dish! I also think the younger generation is a bit too
sensitive these days, every kitchen in the world at some point is for a lack
of a better term "hell's kitchen". Constructive criticism sometimes is the
chef saying "hey that looks like shit, fix it", and your only response is
"yes chef".

Finding good your cooks is always a concern for chefs. We need people that work hard and follow direction, can take initiative, respond to criticism, want to learn, and are willing to do what ever it takes for the restaurant. It's not that the cooks are not out there, they are just few and far between.

This is no simple answer to this question. For me it's not about finding good young cooks, because that doesn't really exist when your young. It's a matter of finding young people with a strong work ethic that are smart enough to learn and humble enough to not be afraid to work hard. That combination is difficult to find. Then it is a matter of having them stay long enough with you for them to make a difference to your business, meaning limiting turnover. It used to be that a year to a year and a half was the standard to staying in one kitchen. These days I feel that number has gone down to approximately 8 months as these young cooks try to "pad" their resume.

I think there is an incredible amount of good young talent out there
and you need to look. Too often people/restaurateurs fall into the trap of
wanting a "name" chef. Then comes the big question Is it a "chef driven
concept"? I've been thinking about what this means a lot lately as I have
moved closer to hiring a chef. Is a chef driven concept one that has a name
chef at the helm or a restaurant whose menu is driven by the chef? To me
these are two totally different things.
Personally, I feel that young talent is more driven, passionate and creative
than those who have been cheffing for some time. They have a lot at stake,
they want to make a name for themselves and they have nothing to lose.
Young talent is less expensive and gives who ever hires them a lot of
possibility in terms of what they can gain. The world's your oyster right?
That my two cents anyway. Bye now.

Well, good question. It is indeed very hard to find good cooks. Times have changed big time from when I was coming up I know that. Nowadays it's hard to find people with the commitment and dedication that cooks used to have. It's a shame, but food tv and the entertainment aspect of cooking and restaurants is ruining things. It's not a shortage of talent, you cAn teach just about anybody to be a good line cook, but the attitude and their outlook on the business is what is hard to contend with. I have missed weddings, graduations, funerals, family parties, and lots of other things that I would have loved to do for cooking. Reliability is huge. Over the past few years I've had cooks saying dumb stuff to me like, "my brother is in town this Saturday and I haven't seen him in 2 years and I wanna hang out with him." Really? That's not my problem, who is gonna work that station now? But, if you say no too much nowadays they will quit! It's like you are being held hostage. Everybody comes in the door enthused and saying the same thing. "I just wanna cook and learn." 3 weeks in, that go getter attitude changes. Everybody wants to be something big without putting the work in. It sucks, but it's what is happening. The days of just listening to and trusting the chef because he is the chef seem to be ending. Kids that have accomplished nothing try telling you what "we should do" because They read it in a book. I will add that I don't really get the whole asking celebrity chefs this question, because I don't think celebrity chefs have to worry about hiring line cooks. Just saying.

As far as finding good "young" cooks, that question is more or less irrelevant to me and my kitchen. When I am hiring, I look for the person that best fits the position regardless of age. While it's true that youthfulness is certainly a highly regarded quality, it doesn't make much difference to me whether you are 22 or 122. If you have the drive and the ability to absorb information and respond to it appropriately by producing a quality product, you are probably who I am looking for. That said, I've definitely found the younger set of cooks we've staged recently have a much less desirable work ethic and seem only interested in immediately attaining the final prize without doing the work it takes to get to that point.

Finding young cooks in Houston is easy, good young cooks, not so much. Most of them come in with an overly large sense of entitlement, unwilling to pay their dues. Which is not to say that there aren't hard working hard charging, talented young cooks out there, they're just gems in the rough lately.

That said, I really should just refer to Rob Levitt's post above. He says exactly what I'm thinking.

I think its pretty easy to find people who love food and want to be in the industry. But skills run the whole gamut and its better to get someone who knows less but learns fast than someone with bad habits or who thinks they know a lot already.

I don't think it's any harder to find good young cooks now than it has been in the past. It has been easier for me to find and attract good cooks with more time and experience on my side though. I think finding good cooks, attracting talent, developing a well balanced team that can push each other is, in part, what separates a great cook from a chef. I think young cooks are more educated and exposed than I was at that age and in turn expect to learn more and see more, which in turn pushes us to offer more. Our industry as a whole will always benefit from having a work force that wants to learn more

It’s always been challenging to find motivated cooks that want to learn, have ambition, need a break and will contribute to a restaurant with energy, enthusiasm, and some level of skill.

When we hire what seems to work best word of mouth. Someone has a friend or knows someone who is interested in working at Prairie Grass Cafe and Prairie Fire. Occasionally we will have someone walk in and want to fill out an application. I almost always try and stop what I am doing to give them a chance to explain what they are looking for. Once in a while I will find someone that I feel strongly about having great potential and a really good fit for my kitchen. I’ll try and figure out how to work them into the line up.

It can be difficult! One of the problems is that young professional cooks have difficulty understanding and excepting how much time and dedication it takes to get to a position in management. You need to be humble!

Finding good young cooks plain and simple is and always seems to be a job in itself. For most restaurants they just don't seem to fall in all of our laps. A kitchen can only hope for a young cook who is willing to be patient, listen, and work disciplined. Then it is the responsibility of all the kitchens he/she has worked in past and present to make them better than they actually are.

Nowadays it's nearly impossible to find "good young cooks." The most
important quality is how how hard they work at any age. That's why at our
restaurants we require any position to complete a one day unpaid trail. This
gives them an understanding of the job duties and responsibilities and a
feel for how the kitchen runs. It also allows us to gauge their dedication
and work ethic. The most important thing is one we hire them, we never want
them to leave the restaurant.

It's not to hard to find young cooks, but finding the ones how are
career oriented is completely different story. The ones that do show
that they care, makes me want to teach and help them in the future.

good cooks aren't hard to find, it is trying to get ones that are focused on foundation building and not trying to get on the food network.....

You don’t find young good cooks. I look for a young good person knowing I can mold him or her to be a good cook. There are lots of young people with passion and creativity but no one really comes into the profession as a “good cook.” Good cooks are made, not found

I think it can be difficult finding good young cooks for several reasons.
Today many people want to be cooks because of the romance of being a cook
or chef has increased in the past several years based on the influence of
media and pop culture. I also think many young cooks approach kitchens with
a lack of discipline that prevents them from learning and succeeding to
their potential. Working in a kitchen is difficult and can take a great
deal of dedication, without sacrifice cooks may never make it in a serious
restaurant environment where they dream or assume they should be working.

How hard is it to find good, young cooks?
I think it's very difficult, especially for smaller, unknown, just opened
restaurants like Vincent. We will get resumes and less than 5% will get
called for a stage. The other 95% consist of people with no or little
cooking experience at all. So, we try out some fresh out of school cooks and
a lot of them have no idea what kitchen life really is-fast, laborious, hot,
stressful, etc. Sometimes they just leave quietly in the middle of their
stage or forgot they had to do something important (the latter I've heard
more than a handful of times). Most young cooks want to work at the fancy,
well known restaurants...who wouldn't? I think it's difficult for all
restaurants, each in their own way. We are all looking for the same thing in
a cook: hardworking, efficient, follows directions, fast, passionate,
attentive and is the right fit for the restaurant.
On Jul 22, 2011 11:22 AM,

it is hard to find someone who has the same drive and dedication. there are
so many students who come out of school thinking they are sous chef
material. no one wants to work late or weekends. or clean the kitchen.
being a chef is so much more than just coming up with ideas, it is
execution, sanitation, ambiance, and most of all focus. knife skills are
very rarely born, they take time and practice to learn.

It is difficult to find good cooks. The food network has turned chefs into stars. This has changed the perception of the chef and glorified it. It seems like a lot of youngsters get into the business for the wrong reason. Young cooks want to suddenly become chefs without going through the work to become really good. Most culinary schools are for profit institutions so it seems like they accept anyone. Nobody is telling these kids that it is hot, hard work, you give up weekends for life, and you will cut and burn yourself a lot before you become a chef. There a lot more youngsters that want to be cooks than there are good at it.

ah yes young cooks... very few put in the work to get out what they are looking to do in the careers. Have the base work ethic and experience before you want to jump into leading and running the kitchen. Like all good things it takes time... Rare to find these days!

You know, i think that culinary schools themselves are the biggest culprit when it comes to finding good employees. I find that especially recently (because of the chef craze), young kids straight out of school have a sense of self worth and entitlement that is not on par with their skill level. Which is not to say that there are not tons of talented kids out there, its just hard to get through to them because very few of them want to hear that they dont know anything. It takes years of work to become truly good in the kitchen, and it seems to me that every year fewer and fewer people want to put in the work.

The problem isn't always finding good cooks. There is a lot of talent out
there, but is is often paired with an attitude that comes from age and lack
of experience. Most of my contemporaries come from humble beginnings. My
first kitchen job was washing dishes. The need for a job combined with
talent and a willingness to do whatever it takes to learn and move your way
through the kitchen often leeds to a more complete, dedicated cook versus a
kid who went to school and spent 3 months interning at a big name restaurant
and thinks he's qualified to be a sous chef. Schools are part of the
problem these days, not providing a realistic view of what's ahead. Good
cooks are harder to find because the sense of entitlement that comes along
with a culinary school degree, and not enough cooks are willing to start at
the bottom. Skins are too thin, and when chefs try to knock down the
attitudes of young cooks, regardless of talent, they choose to quit rather
than learn from the experience. They think getting yelled at or kicked off
the line during service is personal when really it is all business. No one
wants to start at the bottom and stay a while.

Sometimes it seems as if Sonoma County lately has more aspiring farmers than good young cooks. To maintain a successful line team at our restaurants we spend a lot of time training our dishwashers and prep cooks on pantry, grill and saute. Though challenging and takes time, this has been working for us because we are able to teach our staff from scratch with no bad habits and it will give them a chance to increase their wages. We have also been trying to get involved with the high school and the teen centers to find out the interest of students to see if we can get them in early and see if they have an aptitude towards cooking.

Food TV as fun as it may be, is changing some of the outlooks that young hopefuls may have,in regards to what a cooking job is. There is little glory working your way up through a kitchen and more so, it takes someone that has the passion to learn, sweat it out and work hard.

Meanwhile reality is still trying to cook great food, consistently and safely.

I think that this question is a bit broad. As in every industry you have people who are driven and passionate, regardless of age. While you also have people who are getting into cooking thinking they will become a celebrity the day they graduate culinary school. Age is irrelevant in the culinary field. It's how hard you work, how much research you do, and how much your willing to devote of yourself. I do think the influx of interest has brought a lot of bad seeds which makes it hard to find the gems.

It can be hard to find cooks with energy, passion and a strong work ethic.
In a small kitchen, just one off cook can tear apart the entire dynamic.
But once you get a team of hard working cooks together, the fun and growth
can really start.

I don't think it's that hard to find good, young cooks. Everyone does a stage to see if it's a good fit for both sides. I basically look for someone who is passionate about what they do and make sure their experience with me will align with their goals - both short and long term. The average length of time they are with me is about 2-3 years. Most grow and advance within my restaurant, but I always make sure I set up stages with other restaurants so they can see what other chefs are doing with food and how their kitchens operate.