Catering Jobs – Professional

Identify Great Professional Catering Jobs

You may have wanted to become a chef for as long as you can remember or only recently decided that this is the ideal career for you. Either way, you dream of the day when you can don a chef’s uniform and enter a professional kitchen with confidence in your catering abilities, skills and appearance.

Chefs’ Uniforms

At Prue Leith Chefs Academy, we not only train aspirant chefs in various types and styles of local and international cuisine. We also school our students in the finer details of their art – discipline, maintenance of impeccable hygiene and sanitary standards, neatness and pride in their appearance, whilst dressed in a distinctive, easily identified uniform.

Principally, the uniform consists of a hat or toque, white jacket and hounds-tooth patterned black and white pants (plain black pants are also worn nowadays) and an apron. The latter garment is generously cut and loose-fitting for coolness, comfort and ease of movement.

It has been customary for different hat heights to designate rank or station within a professional kitchen and its original design and use dates back to the 16^th century.

Jackets are made of durable, thick cotton, allowing the body to breathe while protecting the torso and arms from splashes, splatters, scorches and burns, especially those accidentally caused by super-heated kitchen equipment, liquids, oils or fats and steam.

This practical, double-breasted item of apparel (also known as “chef’s whites”) is reversible, the perfect way to disguise catering stains for the duration of the shift, until the jacket can next be laundered. White is traditionally associated with purity and cleanliness, essential elements when working with foodstuffs. White garments are visibly pristine or dirty and stained.

Footwear

One thing is guaranteed – if you take on a professional catering job. You will spend many long hours on your feet, in and around the kitchen. Sore, aching feet are simply not an option, not when your focus is on the creation of dishes of excellence – the benchmark of every successful chef.

In your own interest, you should ensure that your footwear meets certain requirements, starting with good fit and comfort. Specialised clog styled shoes are favoured by the majority of kitchen professionals. Durable leather uppers allow hardworking feet breathe and move freely.

Characteristics on which one should focus include flexibility, protection of feet, especially toes, a slip resistant sole and a design which supports the various parts of the foot’s anatomy as nature intended, much like the placement of a bare foot on yielding surface.

Catering Jobs

Irrespective of how long you’ve harboured your passion for creative food preparation, research reveals that this career path opens doors for you throughout South Africa and abroad. There are catering jobs aplenty for professional chefs of good repute – that is, providing that you’re suitably qualified and have a certain amount of credible catering experience, as you will be when you study at and qualify through Prue Leith’s school.

We make it simple and easy for both employers and chefs to find one another. Our website features available professional catering job vacancies, posted by the former for which the latter may apply. In fact, many hospitality organisations insist on appointing Prue Leith graduates only.

Likewise, our graduates are welcome to place their CVs and job requirements on the site, entirely free of charge – an effective, efficient service to both valued industry parties.