A day as a Sous Chef
The sous chef is the person the kitchen actually runs through. The chef writes the menu and talks to the owner, but you're the one who makes sure the walk-in holds what the menu promises and the line can cook it at the height of a Friday. This is one of those days.
The kitchen behind this day
This day is set in an independent, full-service restaurant with a dinner menu, a small brigade and a chef who is in most days but not every hour. In a hotel or a large group, the shape is similar but there's more paperwork: banquet event orders, a purchasing system and a regional chef who reads your food cost. In a smaller place you'll cook a station yourself most nights. Either way the job sits in the gap between the chef's plan and the cooks' hands, and a lot of what you do is translation. The chef says the halibut special should feel lighter. You turn that into a spec, a prep list, a par and a plate that a newer cook can put up the same way every time.
Opening to close on a dinner shift
Walk the walk-in before anyone else does
You check the overnight temps on the reach-ins, then walk the walk-in with the order guide on your phone. Produce came in light on herbs again, so you mark the invoice short, text the rep and move tomorrow's order up. You count proteins against the pars you set last week, and you notice the short rib from Tuesday is dated today. That becomes the family meal and a note to cut the braise batch next time.
Prep lists and the cook who didn't show
You write prep lists by station on the whiteboard, ranked so the long jobs start first: stocks and braises before brunoise. Then the sauté cook texts that he's sick. This is where the plan breaks. You pull the prep cook onto sauté for the night, take over his pick-up yourself for the first turn, and push the lower-priority prep to the morning crew. You message the chef so nobody is surprised at lineup.
Line check, tasting and lineup
Every station gets a line check before service. You taste every sauce, check the salt on the purée, look at the date labels and make sure the backups are actually in the lowboy and not still on a sheet tray in the walk-in. At lineup you walk front of house through the special, the allergens in it and the dishes that will run out. Servers want a straight answer about the gluten in the jus, and you give it.
Running the pass
When the chef steps off to greet a table, you're expediting. You call tickets, fire courses, watch the grill cook's temps and send back a plate with a smeared rim. You're also working sauté, because of this morning. A big table with a couple of allergies lands at the same time as the rush, and you stagger their courses so the line doesn't bury itself. Nobody notices the save, which is how you know it worked.
Breakdown, the log and tomorrow's order
You check each station's breakdown, pull anything that won't hold and log the waste on the clipboard the chef reviews on Mondays. Then you write the order for the morning from what's left, update the prep notes and leave a handoff message for the opener. You're the last one to sign the cooling log before you lock the walk-in.
Three common ways people get the title
Up from the line in the same kitchen
This is the route most sous chefs take. You become the cook who knows every station, who opens without being told what to do, and who the chef starts leaving in charge on a slow Tuesday. Promotion to junior sous, then sous, often happens without the job ever being posted.
Culinary school, then a few kitchens
A culinary degree or diploma gets you on the line faster and teaches the vocabulary, costing and sanitation basics. It won't skip you past line time. Graduates who move to a sous role still earned it on stations, usually in a couple of different restaurants.
A lateral move into a bigger operation
Lead cooks and kitchen supervisors in hotels, hospitals, catering and university dining often step into a sous title there. Those kitchens care more about ordering, scheduling and food safety records, so the shift is lighter on plating and heavier on paperwork.
Where the job gets hard
The cooking is rarely the problem. The hard part is authority without the final say. You'll discipline a cook for skipping a date label on a Saturday and then work the next station over from them for the rest of the night. You'll hold a standard the chef set even when the chef isn't there to back you up. The schedule is the other weight. Holidays, doubles and the night someone quits all land on you first, and that's the part people leave the title over. The sous chefs who last tend to guard one real day off and say so out loud.
What Sous Chef postings ask for
Hiring the most
- Aramark59
- DIG INN Chefs-In-Training33
- Asmglobal16
- Boyd Gaming14
- AccorHotel11
Remote
1% of openings are fully remote.
Posted pay
$68,777 – $75,000
Typical range in the 12 of the newest 60 postings that list pay.
Questions people ask
What's the difference between a sous chef and a chef de cuisine?
A chef de cuisine runs one kitchen day to day, often under an executive chef who oversees several. A sous chef is the second in command below either of them. In a single restaurant with no executive chef, the head chef and the chef de cuisine are often the same job, and the sous is the next rung down.
Do sous chefs still cook on the line?
In most restaurants, yes. You'll jump on a station when someone is out, work the pass during the rush and cook specials yourself. In large hotel and banquet kitchens you may cook less and spend more time on ordering, schedules and checking other people's work.
Is a sous chef a salaried job?
It often is, and that's worth asking about in the interview. A salaried sous chef who covers every open shift can end up earning less per hour than the cooks. Ask how many shifts a week are expected and what happens when the kitchen is short.
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